


And Baby Makes Three

by akamarykate



Category: Early Edition
Genre: Accidental Baby Acquisition, Banter, Canon Het Relationship, Characters of color, Chicago (City), F/M, Gary Hobson: A Man Born to Have Kids, Harry Potter fandom cameo, Kid Fic, Novel, POV Alternating, Post-Series, Romantic Comedy, WOULD YOU TWO JUST KISS ALREADY
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-04-14
Updated: 2014-04-14
Packaged: 2018-01-19 09:37:21
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 14
Words: 144,000
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1464544
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/akamarykate/pseuds/akamarykate
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>"I don't want Addie anywhere near that trial. I want you to take her." Rachel drew in a deep breath and looked from Toni to Hobson. "Both of you. Take her and keep her safe."</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> Thanks, first and always, to Jayne L. for inspiration (see end notes), commiseration, cheerleading, keen-eyed beta reading, and for keeping the candle lit for these two crazy kids, the OTP of our fourteen-year-old hearts. This story simply would not exist without you.
> 
> Thanks also to earlydues for creating and maintaining [her Early Edition website](http://earlydues.usanethosting.com/ee/). I can't tell you how many times I checked your episode pages for character names, dates, and other important information. 
> 
> Finally, thanks to Silly Bug Julian, who came along a year after Addie first popped into my head, but nonetheless gave me all kinds of inspiration and ideas. Addie had the big brown eyes before I met you, J, but when you opened yours and stuck out your tongue at me that very first time, I was a gonner. Thanks for being your silly self and singing "Car-go-sh" (Chicago) songs with me while I finished this up.
> 
> This is set post-season 4, post-series...we're talking summer of 2000 events (and technology). Spoilers for the whole of _Early Edition_. There's violence on par with what you'd see in some episodes, and language you wouldn't hear on network television. 
> 
> More notes at the end.

"C'mon, give me something, anything." Gary whapped at a few keys, but the website kept coming back with the same information: _No name or phone on record._

The clock at the bottom corner of the computer screen ticked over to seven-ten. He was running out of time in more ways than one. "You couldn't have come earlier, just this once?" he asked Cat, who sat at attention on the desk across from Gary's. Cat didn't even blink. 

While he rifled through the crap on his desk with one hand, searching for his Jeep keys and a map, he picked up the phone with the other and punched in the number he'd been trying without success since the paper had arrived. "Damn," he muttered when it went straight to voicemail, and hung up. He'd already left messages.

He found the keys under a pile of unopened mail that had escaped his inbox--or maybe it was the inbox that had escaped, since he didn't see it anywhere. The map was wedged under his empty outbox, which was on top of a filing cabinet. There was something else he needed--the paper, but that was right there on his desk. "What else, what--"

Cat let out a meow. 

"What--oh." Marissa's backpack was on her chair, which meant she had class this afternoon, which meant she'd come to work early, which meant--

\--which meant he wasn't imagining the odor of that other thing he needed. He hustled out to the bar, following his nose to the booth where Marissa sat with a stack of Braille printouts and two steaming mugs of coffee. 

"Thank you," he said on a sigh, dumped everything on the table, and slid onto the seat across from her. Reilly plopped his head on Gary's lap; Gary scratched the dog's ears, then downed the coffee in a couple of gulps. 

"You're welcome." Marissa sat back, taking careful sips of her own coffee. "How's your day so far?"

"Not good." Gary slammed the mug down and checked to be sure they were alone in the bar. He could hear staff in the kitchen prepping for lunch, but no one would be out here for another hour or two. "I need your help."

"You're asking for help? Wow, mark it on the calendar."

"I'm serious here." He waved the paper, as if she could see it. "This thing is such a half-assed excuse for a crystal ball. I mean, if I'm supposed to fix things, the least it could do is tell me exactly what to fix. And when. And where."

"You'd hate it if that happened. It'd be less exciting for you than trading stocks."

This wasn't the kind of exciting he'd asked for. "But we're talking about someone's life here-- _four_ someones' lives."

Marissa's grin vanished. "What's wrong?"

This was one of those times he wished the paper would come in a Braille edition. Saying these things out loud made them all too likely to really happen. But he didn't have time to waste wishing. "There's an explosion about an hour from now at a house out in Oak Brook. Probably a gas leak." He unfolded the map, checking to see how close the address in the article was to the expressway. Just his luck, it was at least three miles away. "Two women and a baby are going to die."

"No, they're not." Marissa held out a hand, palm down, as though she could tamp his panic. "You're--"

"--going to stop it, yeah, but that's not the worst of it."

"What's worse than--wait a minute, who's number four?"

He turned to the story he'd been running toward all morning, to the standard-issue photo and the headline that was just a name, one he knew all too well. "Brigatti. She's--there's an obituary here. It doesn't say how or where or when--just today."

Marissa's hand curled around her mug. "No."

"I'm not making this up. 'Chicago Police Detective Antonia Brigatti, 34, died today of unknown causes. Detective Brigatti served three years with the Chicago Police Department, after five years as an agent in the U.S. Marshals. She is survived by her parents and three--"

" _Stop_ ," Marissa choked out. Cat jumped into her lap, and she gave the fur over his neck a squeeze. Gary glared at Cat. Why couldn't the damned thing tell him what to do? "It won't happen. It can't. If she's sick, you'll get her to a hospital. If it's an accident, you'll stop it."

"That's the point." Gary slammed a hand on the table, and his keys jumped and slid to the floor. "There are too many ifs. I have no idea how she's going to die."

"Is there anything else? Some other story in the paper that might be related?"

"No." He looked at the story on the page opposite the obituaries. _Gala Raises Funds for Cancer Research_. A bunch of men stood talking to an elegant blonde beneath a logo, a yellow butterfly painted on a glass wall. They all held champagne glasses and the kind of smiles that said they knew they were being photographed, though they were pretending not to be.

"No...but?" Marissa prompted.

"Oh, it's just this picture on the page across from Brigatti--I think these guys are all police bigwigs. One of them's her captain. What's he doing at a party tonight if she's dead? Plus, if she's killed in the line of duty, there'd be--" 

"--a big story about it," she finished. "Maybe you don't need to know what it is. But you have to warn Toni."

"I've _tried_. I've been calling her since I saw the story. She's not picking up at home or on her cell, and the dispatcher at her precinct said she's not in this morning. And I can't go looking for her, because I have an explosion to stop in fifty minutes. It feels like--" He lowered his voice, even though only Reilly and Cat were there to hear. "Marissa, it feels like I have to choose. Brigatti or the baby."

"No, you're going to save them both. But you do need help." Marissa nudged Cat off her lap. He pawed at Gary's ankle, as if Gary needed prompting to get going. Marissa pulled her cell phone out of her pocket. "I assume you tried calling the gas company?"

"They wouldn't listen. Said I wasn't the owner and couldn't smell a leak from this far away."

"What about the people who live there?"

"According to that reverse directory thing you put on my computer, no one does." Gary rolled the paper into a haphazard tube. "There's no owner listed, no number, nothing. Maybe they're squatters."

"In Oak Brook?" Marissa asked dubiously.

"Doesn't matter why they're there. I have to get out there and stop it. I can't let a baby die, but I don't want to lose Brigatti. She's--" Confusing. Aggravating. "This city needs good cops. She doesn't deserve to die."

"It isn't a matter of choice," Marissa insisted in the tone that meant she assumed the universe would bend to her will. "Neither of those things will happen." She handed him her cell phone. "Give me the numbers--Brigatti's and the precinct's. I can call her while you get the people out of the house."

Gary closed his hand around the cell. It was silver, even smaller than the last one. "I have to leave in the next--" He glanced at the clock over the bar while Marissa touched the face of her watch. 

"Five minutes," they said together. 

"So I'll take your cell and call Brigatti while I drive out there."

"Absolutely not." Marissa swiped her phone back. "I'm already worried about you driving in rush hour traffic in this state. Add in trying to use a cell phone, when you have trouble with them on a good day--"

"I do not!"

She waggled the phone at him."Oh, and I got this new one for fun, and not because you dropped the last one under a horse's hoof?"

"I was trying to--"

"Dial and walk at the same time?"

"Dial and _run_. And stop the horse from trampling an old lady while I was calling in a fire on the other side of town." It had been another damn _or_ forced upon him by the paper, just like today. Luckily, the lady had a phone of her own and let him borrow it.

"And you destroyed my phone in the process. I don't want to think how much worse things can get if you're operating heavy machinery. Besides, Toni likes arguing too much. You both do."

"What's that got to do with it?"

"You'll get in a fight and she'll hang up before you can warn her. C'mon, Gary, you said you wanted help. Let me do this."

Gary reached for the phone. "I'll put the numbers in for you."

"Six and seven on the speed dial are open."

"Okay--uh--" He looked down at the buttons. "Do I press six, or--"

Marissa held out her hand. "Just tell me their numbers. It'll be a lot faster."

~*~*~*~

Shady Grove was a new development of wood frame houses, each three times the size of the one Gary'd grown up in, though they were supposed to remind the owners of living in a place like Hickory. _Shady Grove Estates-- Big City Living, Small Town Charm_ , read the sign at the entrance. Gary didn't know of any small towns surrounded by rock walls with locked gates eight feet tall. He got no response when he pressed the call button on the gate's keypad.

"Small town charm my ass," he muttered. His watch read seven-fifty-two, which meant he had about ten minutes, a little less if he took away the minute or so between the actual explosion and the first 911. 

He parked his Jeep, got out, and scaled the rock wall, crawling along the top of it until he found a spot below that hadn't been landscaped with boulders and thorny shrubs. Pushing Marissa-like thoughts of caution away, he dropped and rolled, lost his baseball cap, shoved it back on, and came up running before he had time to worry about the ankle he'd twisted.

At least the developers had gotten the "small" part right. Willowdale was one of three streets branching off the main entryway; it ended in a cul-de-sac two blocks away. As Gary jogged around the corner, a grey SUV with black racing stripes shot down the otherwise deserted street way faster than the posted twenty-five miles per hour speed limit. Behind Gary, the gate slid open. "You couldn't have been late for work three minutes ago?" The twinge in his left ankle bloomed into full-out pain. 

A few houses down, he found "478" painted on the curb in front of a two-story house. It was missing the giant, jagged hole it bore in the newspaper photo, but not, Gary figured, for long. Adrenaline carried him up the porch steps. He rang the bell once, twice, then laid on the button. "Hey! Wake up in there!" He pounded on the door. "Your house is about to blow up!"

The door flew open. A hand reached out from behind it, grabbed his shirt, and yanked him inside. Gary stumbled, landed on his twisted ankle, and fell with a yelp as the door slammed shut so hard it rattled the windows.

He rolled over, fully aware of too many things to process at once: the fact he'd been pulled into a death trap; the pain flaring up his left leg; the barrel of a gun pointed at his nose--

\--the familiar voice behind it. "What the hell are you doing here?"

Gary blinked up at a gorgeous pair of dark eyes. The two sides of the _or_ that had frustrated him all morning collapsed into an _and_. "Hi, Brigatti."

~*~*~*~

Dopey.

The moment Hobson realized Toni was the one who'd pulled him into the house, the look on his face clicked over from frantic to dopey, happy as a kid who'd found the missing last piece of his jigsaw puzzle. He had the nerve to lie there on the floor of her safe house, the one nobody was supposed to know about, and blink up at her from under the brim of a Cubs hat with a lopsided grin, as though he was glad to see her, happy to have a gun stuck in his face. 

A gun. Her gun. Pointed at Hobson. Again.

Only years of training kept her from dropping her Glock. Instead, she lowered it, tucked it into her holster, and offered him a hand up. Those same years of training kept her expression absolutely rigid, so Hobson wouldn't know about the frisson that ran through her when their hands fit together and he stumbled into her. She pushed him away, but saw how gingerly he put weight on his left foot. Crap. "You hurt?"

He shrugged. Still with the dopeface. "My ankle."

"It's your own fault, barging into my safe house."

"It wasn't you, it was the wall. The wall and the rocks."

He made no sense. As usual. Which made her the dummy for asking, "How did you even know to find me here?"

"I didn't. I--you--" Hobson's eyes went wide. "Brigatti, we gotta get--"

"Toni? What's going on? I just got Addie back to sleep." Rachel came rushing down the steps without thinking, as usual. She stopped short when she saw Hobson. "Oh, shit."

Any other time, Toni would have laughed. "Oh, shit" probably wasn't a reaction Hobson was used to getting. But Rachel had summed it up. Hobson appearing where he wasn't supposed to be--especially here, especially now--meant trouble.

He looked back and forth between the two of them, and she swore she heard him counting under his breath. "The baby--Brigatti, you have to get out of here, both of you, go!" He pushed her toward the front door, but she whirled on him.

"No one's going anywhere until you tell me how you found me." She'd seen the messages he'd left on her cell and thought he was angling for another date she couldn't make. Too much was at stake. She looked at Rachel, still frozen on the second-to-last step. Way too much.

"There's a gas explosion. There will be."

"How would you know that?"

"Well, you know, I get those--those urges sometimes?"

"You have to get your urges under control, Hobson," she snapped, then realized what she'd said. They each took a half-step apart. 

"It doesn't matter how I know." Hobson checked his watch. "A minute from now, give or take, the garage--Brigatti, please, we have to go."

An explosion here, now, wouldn't be gas. But she'd checked the garage herself. It was clean, unless someone had gotten in overnight, when her protection detail had been keeping an eye out for just that kind of thing. She stalked into the sitting room and peeked through the slats of the closed blinds. It took a minute for her brain to register that the unmarked sedan that had been parked in the driveway all night was gone. "Damn it, Delano," she whispered. This was not the time for her watchdog to make a Starbucks run. "Hobson, was there a car in the driveway when you got here?" Wait a minute, there wasn't _any_ car at all out there. "How'd you get past the gate?" 

"Climbed a fence. Where's the garage? Brigatti, where's the _baby_?"

"Addie!" Rachel turned and started up the stairs. Toni followed, but Hobson pushed past her and caught Rachel by the arm. "Let go of me, you--" She froze, squinted at Hobson. " _You_."

"Me?" he asked, backing down a step, right into Toni. "Sorry," he muttered, grabbing her elbow, steadying her. 

"Hobson, what the hell?"

Rachel cut her off. "You saved Mike."

"Who?" Hobson asked, just as Toni said, "But Mike's--"

The air fractured. 

Toni flew backward and careened into a bookcase a few yards away from the stairs. She covered her head to protect it from the pieces of the living room wall raining down around her.

And the glass. From the window where she'd been standing.

Glass and wall and wood and furniture fluff and--

The wall. To the garage.

Of her safe house. 

She drew her gun. "Rachel!" The name scraped her throat, but her ears rang so loudly she couldn't hear it. Bits of wall and curtain still floated down around her as she staggered to her feet. 

Hobson had fallen--more likely thrown himself--over Rachel, and they'd landed at the bottom of the stairs, the farthest point on the first floor from the garage. By the time Toni made it to them, they were both on their feet. Hobson's eyes found hers and he said something, but he was waving away dust and smoke and she couldn't hear him, couldn't read his lips. 

Rachel's "Addie!" was a lot easier to make out. Once again, she started up the stairs, but Toni and Hobson both grabbed her. Hobson gestured up the stairs, then at himself. 

Toni nodded. "Back door! Trees!" she shouted, pointing the way. "Platypus!" She had no idea if he understood; it was all she could do to hang on to Rachel and keep her from following him as he gallomped to the second floor. 

"Addie's okay, she was farther away than any of us," she said. Her voice echoed in her head; she couldn't tell if it had made it out. Rachel looked from her to the top of the stairs, where Hobson had disappeared into the haze of dust and smoke.

Smoke. Shit. Sirens cut through the bell choir still going on in her ears. Awfully quick for a 911 response.

Someone had blown up her safe house. On purpose. To draw her out. To get to Rachel. 

"We have to go!" She yanked at Rachel's arm. Rachel blinked at her. "Hobson will get Addie."

"Hobson," Rachel mouthed, and then, miraculously, stumbled along as Toni pulled her through the smoke rapidly filling what was left of the first floor. They stumbled onto the back deck together. Toni grabbed Rachel's hand and started for the stand of trees that fringed the backyard and marked the edge of the neighborhood park. Rachel's longer legs kept up with the breakneck pace Toni set, but Toni wished they were both shorter, faster, more invisible to anyone who'd already figured out there was no way she would fall out the front door into their trap. She had to hope Hobson was just as fast. And smarter than he looked.

They reached the stand of oaks, most of which were the same age as the houses and only about half their height. Not big enough to hide them for long. Toni pushed Rachel into the shade. "Get down."

Rachel dropped, gathering her arms around her knees and rocking back and forth. "It blew up. It blew up."

"Shhh!" Toni crouched, gun at the ready.

"Fuck, Toni, they _blew up the house_!"

She couldn't see the house. She craned her neck, but it was no good.

"My computer, and the car, and--Addie!" Rachel jumped to her feet. Toni yanked her back down. 

"Stay quiet!" Toni shuffled to her right, and finally got a good look at the back of the house. "Hobson's--" She broke off, fear washing down her back. Smoke poured out the back door; flames shot from the window next to it.

And a ladder reached from the backyard to the second floor. To Addie's window. "He's not alone."

~*~*~*~

Gary took the steps two at a time, ignoring his protesting ankle. Brigatti must have hit her head. He could have sworn she'd said something about a platypus. She probably wasn't off the obituary page yet, but he'd found her, and two of the three people who were supposed to die in this explosion were on their way out of the house.

The third wasn't hard to locate; over the ringing in his ears he could hear higher-pitched wails. Smoke teased his nostrils as he traced the baby's screams to the room at the end of the hall. Thank God for whatever coincidence had put the nursery farthest away from the explosion.

He pushed open the door and froze. Maybe it wasn't a coincidence at all. A guy the size of a fullback, wearing black from his boat-sized shoes to his skullcap, stood over the crib, muscles bulging as he held a red-faced baby at arm's length and gave her a shake. 

"Hey!" Gary jumped toward the goon, reaching for the baby, but he tripped over something and ended up diving at the guy's knees. He got a faceful of black jeans and an earful of the most impossibly high, terrified shriek he'd ever heard. Then a soft thump. Grabbing tight to a leg, he rolled toward the dresser. The guy landed on the floor next to Gary; the thump must have been the baby landing in the crib, because she went on crying from that direction, louder than even the smoke alarm screeching out in the hallway. 

The goon got to his feet first, while Gary used the dresser to pull himself up. Or tried to--the guy took a swing and Gary ducked, but not quick enough to cover the punch to his gut that took away his breath and blacked out his vision. He slid down on his butt, and by the time he could blink and breathe again, the goon had turned his back on Gary and loomed over the crib. 

This time, before Gary launched himself, he grabbed the first heavy thing his hand found on the dresser--a lamp. One swing at the black cap, and lamp connected with skull. The goon went down with a moan.

"It's okay, it's okay." Gary scooped the baby up, along with a blanket hanging on the end of the crib. She squirmed like a fish, her cries growing hoarse as he tucked her against his shoulder and threw the blanket over her. Back door, Brigatti had said. Trees. 

But one step into the hallway told him they'd never make it to the first floor. Black smoke roiled through the hall, catching in his lungs. A crackle sounded from the stairs, and beyond that--he peeked over the railing that ran the length of the hallway. Even if he could get down the stairs, he couldn't take the baby through the wall of flames advancing through the first floor. The smoke up here was bad enough, and getting worse. The baby had a fistful of his shirt and was still crying, though her screams had turned to sobs. He retreated to her room.

~*~*~*~

"Shit, Toni, they found us!" Rachel lunged toward the house.

"No!" Toni pulled her back. She'd taken down all kinds of criminals, most of them bigger than her, but none as determined as the mother of an eight-month-old in full-out panic. She grabbed Rachel's upper arm and forced her against a tree. "They did this to flush us out, do you understand?"

"But Addie's still in there!"

"Listen to me. I have never lost a witness, not once, and I am not going to lose you or Addie now. You said you know Hobson, right?" Hobson with his trust-me face, with his this-is-a-clusterfuck-but-I-will-fix-it eyes. Hobson, who'd pulled her off a roof ledge and tackled Savalas before he could shoot her. 

And gotten her kidnapped by a Morenian spy, sure, but in the end, it balanced out.

Rachel nodded. "He saved Mike's life last year. Right before Addie was born."

"Then you have to believe he'll get your daughter out." Toni had to believe it, too. Just another in the parade of weird coincidences that marched along with Hobson wherever he went.

"I want to, but--" Rachel pushed off Toni's hold to point at the smoke pouring out the back door and kitchen windows. "He'll never make it through that. " 

"There's the ladder." 

"He's not on it. Call the fire department. Tell them they're in there."

Toni couldn't trust the fire department. She couldn't trust anyone. Delano should have been out front. He'd either been taken out before Hobson got there, or he was in on it. And those sirens had come so soon after the explosion...

After Corbell, after Saunders, after Savalas--especially after Savalas--she wouldn't put anything past most members of the CPD. Or the CFD, the State's Attorney, the ATF, the FBI, or the CIA. She couldn't trust anyone but herself.

Herself and Hobson, apparently. Which meant she shouldn't be too sure about herself. 

She held her breath for a few heartbeats, an eternity, willing Hobson to come out the back door or down the ladder. She couldn't leave Rachel here, and she couldn't wait much longer for Hobson. Not that she had anywhere to go, or any way to get there. And she would not leave without Addie.

"Toni, _please_." Rachel, who'd been a rock through the past six weeks, who'd never once wavered in her determination to take down the Guyette family, who had the same black corkscrew curls as her daughter--Rachel had tears running down her face, streaking through the soot on her cheeks. 

"Yeah. Okay." Toni let go of Rachel and pulled out her phone, but before she could dial, it rang. The number that popped up was a surprise. "Paul?"

His voice twisted tight as her own. "Where are you?"

"I can't--" She couldn't break cover. Couldn't talk over a cell. Couldn't believe Paul had just happened to call at that moment. Couldn't trust--

But this was Paul Armstrong, and he sounded almost as panicked as Hobson had. 

"I know you're in trouble. I'm out in front of the house. Or as near as I can get. The place is swarming with cops and hose jockeys and reporters, but I don't see you. Are you inside?"

She took a deep breath. "We're around back. In the trees. There's a park. I need an extraction. You understand? Nobody else can find us."

"On my way." 

"Who was that?" Rachel asked, her gaze still fixed on the house.

"An awfully big coincidence."

"I don't believe in coincidences anymore."

Toni nodded, pulled Rachel deeper among the trees. "Neither do I."

~*~*~*~

Coughing out smoke, Gary stumbled back into the baby's room. His foot connected with the same soft object that had tripped him before. He kicked at it, and it landed on the chest of the still-moaning goon.

A stuffed platypus. Maybe Brigatti's head was okay after all. Gary grabbed it and pushed it between the baby and his chest. Her free hand, the one that wasn't clutching the shoulder of his shirt, dug into the fur, and she stopped crying as if he'd thrown some kind of switch.

Which was great, but it wasn't going to get them out of the house. The window was open, but this was the second floor and--

\--and Brigatti had called this a safe house, so why would the window to the baby's room be open, and how had this guy gotten in?

He stepped over the goon and saw it--the top of a ladder, leading from the room to the ground. Ground that was a long way from that window, he thought with a gulp, but what other choice did he have?

One-armed, practically one-footed, he would have to climb down the thing. He swung a leg out over the windowsill and slid his right foot onto a rung. "Hang on, kid," he muttered, though he was the one squeezing her, his arm around her hiccupping body, his hand pressing her head into his shoulder. He forced himself to look straight ahead--not down, never down--and started a tentative descent. One rung at a time, he thought. Don't let go of the ladder, don't let go of the baby, don't slip, don't cough, don't flinch, not even when your weight on your left foot shoots javelins of pain up your calf--

His foot flailed in the air, then toed grass. Grass. Ground. He opened his eyes. "Oh, thank--"

The ladder shook. Gary looked up. The guy he'd clonked was already on his way down, moving a lot faster than Gary had. 

Little whimpers escaped from the blanket as Gary spun around, spotted a cluster of trees at the back edge of the yard, and took off running for the smudge of deep red that had to be Brigatti's shirt. 

Running, hell. More like jogging, more like limping, he couldn't even get a full breath without coughing, but he could make it, as long as he didn't stop.

And then what? 

He stopped. Was he leading Brigatti's killer right to her? Any other time, he would have veered off in a different direction to lead the goon away from her. But he had the baby, and Brigatti had the gun, and the paper would have changed already. _Had_ to have changed. 

"Hobson!" She waved an arm.

He ran again, trying to ignore the thudding footsteps gaining on him as he hobbled past a swing set. 

He'd almost made it to the trees when a car roared toward Brigatti, and he saw the flash of sunlight on metal in her hand.

~*~*~*~

The tan Crown Vic tearing down the bike path was the second most beautiful thing Toni had ever seen, topped only by Hobson stumbling across the yard with an armful of green quilt. "He's got her," she told Rachel. "Wave down the car, it's a cop. Addie's safe."

Rachel's eyes went round as quarters. "Not for long."

The guy who'd come down the ladder after Hobson--the bigger guy, the faster guy--was gaining ground. And Hobson, the idiot, hesitated. Now he'd never make it to her in time, and he couldn't fight off the guy chasing him without dropping Addie. 

"Hobson, _run_!" she yelled, and he did. "Get in the car," she ordered, shoving Rachel toward the bike path and lifting her gun. "Now!" 

Behind her, the Vic screeched to a halt, but Toni blocked it out. Blocked out Rachel's worried shouts, blocked out the smoke and flames pouring from the house, blocked out Hobson's fear-scrunched face, less than twenty yards away now, and the squirming bundle in his arms, blocked out everything but the black-clad man who was a few steps behind Hobson. Reaching for him. Reaching for her witness's kid.

"Hobson!" she shouted. He kept on hobbling, blocking her line of fire. "Gary, _get down_!"

And he did. She didn't see how. All she saw was her target and the clear line of fire, right to the guy's shoulder.

She took the shot. Her ears stopped working again. The target fell away. Hobson crouched at her feet with his arms full of blanket and Addie. His lips moved, but the only word she could make out was, "Brigatti." Captain Banks would have her ass for not following through with the suspect, but she made the only choice she could; practically threw Hobson toward the car, then skidded around the hood and dove into the open passenger door. "Go, _go_!" she shouted, and her hearing slammed back on the last word, delivering a cacophony of panic.

"Where?" Paul demanded. The car bounced and jostled, one set of wheels on the bike path, the other leaving tracks in the grass. Tracks that could be followed. "How do we get out of here?"

"Is she okay? Is she hurt?" Rachel's voice cracked. Muffled by the blanket, Addie wailed, a hoarse, exhausted edge to her cries. 

"Seat--" Hobson coughed, an extended, smoky fit that set off a mini-alarm in Toni's head. Should take him to the hospital, and Addie, too. Not to mention she ought to have her hearing checked out. But hospitals meant open public spaces, lots of people, lots of chaos. No way in hell was she taking Rachel and Addie to a place like that, not unless she absolutely had to.

Paul stopped the car at the edge of the park. "Where to?"

"Left." Toni pointed to the road out of Shady Grove. Pulled her hand back into her lap when she realized it was shaking, only to touch the still-hot barrel of her gun. "Through the gate, two blocks down, right on Sixteenth, toward the highway." The gate stood wide open; they passed another fire engine on their way out. She took a steadying breath and holstered the gun. Paul met her eyes for half a second and nodded.

"Is she all right?" Rachel said over the baby's cries. "Addie? Sweetie?"

"Brigat--" More coughs from Hobson. Toni jumped when he grabbed her shoulder. He had his other arm tight around Addie, smushing the kid against his chest. "Seatbelt," he managed. 

" _Seatbelt_?" She wanted to laugh, but he still looked as frantic as he had when he'd fallen into her safe house. And behind him, out the rear window--where had the red car come from?

"Let me see my daughter."

Hobson tightened his hold on her shoulder. "Brigatti, _please_."

"Is this Sixteenth?"

Toni pressed her right foot down on the floor. "Not yet, keep going."

"Addie--"

Paul slowed for a yellow light. "Go _through_ ," Toni insisted.

"Brigatti, buckle your seatbelt, damn it!" Hobson's words echoed around the car as they careened through the intersection.

She'd just shot a man. What was left of her safe house was burning to the ground. She'd nearly lost her witness and her operation was a splintered, unholy mess. And Hobson wanted her to fasten her seatbelt.

The most ridiculous thing wasn't that he was sitting there in Armstrong's car insisting on it. The most ridiculous thing was that she did it.

But only to shut him up.

She caught the twist in Paul's mouth when she pointed to the sign directing them to the expressway, but he was smart enough to keep it shut. She checked behind them; the red car was gone. "No tail?" 

Paul glanced at the rearview mirror. "Not yet."

"Good. Head toward the city." She looked over her shoulder. "Happy now?"

His face shock-blank, Hobson finally sat back, but jumped when Rachel tugged at the blanket. Hobson looked from her to the blanket, over to Rachel. Started to say something, but coughed. He let Rachel fold the blanket back from Addie's face. 

"Is she hurt?" Rachel asked again.

"I don't--" Again with the coughing. "--don't think so." He drew a deeper breath. "The guy in her room, he dropped her, but she landed in the crib. She's just scared." 

"Ma!" Addie crowed. She did a little push up against Hobson's chest and grinned at Rachel. Her face was red and streaked with tears, but she looked okay. And she had her favorite toy. 

"You brought Fred," Toni said.

Hobson blinked at the baby. "I thought her name was Addie."

"The platypus."

"Oh." He tugged at it, but Addie held on tight, as always. "You told me to."

"She won't sleep without him. I'll take her now--really, it's okay." Rachel gathered Addie, who blinked around at them all with her big, dark eyes, into her lap. And Fred, of course. Finding Fred had probably slowed Hobson down, but Toni wasn't sure they'd make it through the next twenty-four hours without the toy, wherever they ended up. Which was the real question, wasn't it? Where the hell was she supposed to go now? 

"The man in the house--the man who--" Rachel choked, looking to Hobson for answers. "What was he going to do to her? Would he have hurt her?"

"They set the explosion to go off away from Addie's room," Toni said, thinking out loud. "Probably wanted to take her for insurance in case you survived." Something about that was wrong, but she couldn't catch hold of it.

"The trial starts in two days," Rachel said. "I thought we were home free."

So had Toni. She should have known better.

"Who was he?" Anger, sharp and startlingly dangerous, flashed in Hobson's eyes. "Why would he take the baby?"

"Leverage," Toni said.

"To shut me up," Rachel finished bitterly.

"They don't know you very well if they think that would work," Toni assured Rachel.

Rachel stared down at her finger, wrapped tight in Addie's chubby fist. "Maybe they do," she whispered. "It's okay, sweetpea. You're okay." She buried her face in Addie's hair, mumbling mommy talk.

Hobson coughed again, but not as violently. His hands kept picking at the blanket, like he didn't know what to do with it now that it was empty. "You did good," Toni told him. 

He dropped a long sigh and ran a hand through his hair. "You, too. I thought he would catch us. Is he--did you kill him?"

"I got his shoulder. Hopefully one of our guys'll pick him up."

Paul reached for the radio mic. "You want me to call dispatch?"

Toni knocked it out of his hand. "Not on your life." She jerked a thumb behind her. "Not on theirs."

The car slowed while Paul glanced over his shoulder. The tightness of his jaw eased, and Toni remembered his daughter was about the same age as Addie. No way would he fight her on this one. "I take it we're not heading to the station?"

"No." She stared out the windshield at apartments and factories and strip malls, massaging the back of her neck. "This is big," she told him under her breath. "We have to get in front of this right now. We need to go somewhere no one can find us. _Nobody_. I have to figure out what to do--I--" She hated her brain for spinning in hamster-wheel circles. Not even the Harland diamond case had gone so thoroughly, completely wrong.

"You're going to read me in, though, right? Because this seems like a little more than your standard..." Paul trailed off, glancing in the rearview mirror. "It doesn't seem like a standard anything, to tell you the truth."

"This _was_ a perfectly standard witness protection assignment until half an hour ago, and then it all got blown to hell. How did you know to show up?" 

"Wait, you didn't call him?" Hobson asked.

Of course she hadn't, and if there was yet another leak...her hand slid toward her holster while Paul worked a jaw muscle. 

No, damn it. The circle of people she trusted right now might be limited to the ones in this car, but it did include them. All of them. "I didn't call him," she said, "but I'm glad someone--" At that, she looked right at Hobson. "--did."

"It wasn't him," Paul said. "At least, not exactly." He met Hobson's gaze in the rearview mirror. "You want to tell me why your business partner called to warn me Toni was in trouble, when she didn't have the faintest idea where she was?"

"Marissa called--" Hobson coughed again. "She called you?"

"Said she wasn't having any luck getting hold of Toni. She said I had to find her before she--" Paul gulped. 

"What?" Toni asked. She caught the headshake Hobson gave Armstrong, but he wasn't calling the shots here. "This is about my witness's life. Tell me exactly what she said."

"She said Hobson knew something, in that way he has. Said I had to believe her and go find you." The look he shot her was unreadable. "Said if I didn't, you were going to die."

The hell she was. She hadn't been anywhere near the garage when it blew. 

Because of Hobson. If he hadn't shown up and tried to break down the door, she and Rachel would have been in the kitchen, which shared a wall with the garage. She jerked a thumb over her shoulder. "If Marissa didn't know where to find me, how did he?" 

Hobson looked like he wanted to go through the seat. "I was just there for the explosion. You were in another--a different--"

"Urge?" she supplied.

"Something like that."

Paul cleared his throat. "So I talked to Winslow, twisted his arm. Told him I'd post the contents of his CD collection to the department forum if he didn't give up your location."

"That _rat_." Who else had he told?

"Toni, I'm kidding," Paul said. "Your partner's not that big a flake. I reminded him you and I have a history, offered to take a shift on street surveillance of the house. When he couldn't reach the overnight guy, he got worried, too. We came out in separate cars."

That explained Paul. It didn't, in any way, shape or form, explain Hobson. But then, what ever did? "Where are we?" she asked.

"Just outside Cicero."

She craned her neck to look out the back window. School bus, orange delivery truck, silver sedan, white minivan. And, right behind her, Addie, drooling all over Fred and grinning at Toni as if this were the best adventure ever. "Still no tail?"

Paul shook his head. "Don't think so."

"Let's get off the expressway. I need to--we need--"

"Diapers and formula," Rachel said. 

"Time to think?" Paul asked.

"Yeah." Once more, Toni looked back at Hobson. He'd slumped against the seat, but his gaze held her steady. "I have to figure out our next step."

~*~*~*~

How was it not even nine o'clock yet? Gary scrubbed at his face. Despite what Brigatti had said, not everything had been blown to hell. The two women and the baby--Addie, who was spitting out random syllables like, "Da, ba, mo, da," hadn't died. Brigatti wasn't dead. Brigatti, who'd been one of the women in the house, the house where three people were supposed to die, thanks to an explosion or maybe the goon, who'd nearly run him down, and then God knew what could have happened, but--

\--but he was in the car with them. They were alive. They were all alive. 

He pulled his hands off his face. They came away streaked with soot. He knew he'd stumbled into something more than a simple gas explosion, but he was used to that--nothing about the paper was ever simple, just as nothing with Brigatti or Armstrong was ever simple. Put them all together and it meant this day wasn't over yet. He was pretty sure it had barely gotten started.

"Ba!" Addie flashed Gary a wide-open smile, then sucked on one of the platypus's paws. Her face was round as a full moon, topped with a wild mop of dark curls, and when she gurgled at him, he thought maybe this wasn't the worst day ever.

Not even close to the worst, he decided when Brigatti tucked her hair behind her ear. It didn't matter that her hair was full of bits of debris--like his probably was--she looked beautiful because she was alive. So far. His hand moved for his back pocket, but just as he told himself he couldn't possibly check the paper here, he realized he wasn't sitting on anything but a corner of Addie's blanket. 

"Crap," he whispered. The paper must have fallen out in Addie's room or somewhere on the lawn. Without it, how would he know if he'd really saved Brigatti?

"What's wrong? Did you lose your wallet?" Addie's mom asked. She seemed genuinely worried. "I'll make it up to you somehow, I swear."

"No, it's right here." In his other pocket, of course--but they were all staring at him now, even Armstrong, out of the corner of his eye in the rearview mirror. "I--uh--" He made a show of slapping at all his pockets and came up with his keys. "I left my Jeep parked in the neighborhood, outside the gate."

"We're not going back for it," Brigatti said.

"I'll get it towed back to your place," Armstrong said. "Or at least, I will once _someone_ lets me put in a call to the precinct." Gary wondered why Armstrong was being so nice to him--for Armstrong, anyway. 

"No." Brigatti did another behind-the-ear-tuck, like she couldn't think without playing with her hair. Gary found it hard to think at all when she did that. "Impound it. Though it's probably too late. If anyone's seen it--any of _them_ \--if they get the plates they'll figure out..." She trailed off, staring out the window as if the modest homes in Cicero held some kind of answer.

"Figure out what, exactly?" Armstrong asked. He sat ramrod-straight, as he had the whole ride, hands at ten and two, but his voice held the same note of impatience he usually used on Gary. "You're sounding awfully paranoid, Toni."

"My surveillance disappeared this morning. Eric Delano was vetted, he's been on this team for weeks. He takes off and the house blows up. I know it could be a coincidence, but what if it's not?" Brigatti waited until Armstrong glanced over at her, and the look they exchanged reminded Gary that it hadn't been very long since Armstrong's own partner had betrayed them--and him. "They found my safe house and blew it up. They tried to kill my witness and take her daughter. You want to tell me who I can trust at this point? These people are everywhere."

"Which people?" Gary asked. Addie's mom closed her eyes and tightened her hold on the baby, and Gary's stomach dropped. "Brigatti, c'mon. You can tell us."

She frowned at him, and he braced himself for a barb about his secrets or their missed dates, but then--he wasn't sure what she saw, but maybe it finally got through to her that he was trying to help. "Okay," she breathed. "Yeah. Let's stop here." She directed Armstrong to the far reaches of a department store parking lot, where they were partially shaded by a tree, one of those half-hearted things they planted on islands at the end of the rows to make up for the acres of concrete they'd dropped on the prairie.

Armstrong killed the engine and turned to Brigatti. "I ought to call Banks right now. You have any idea how far off the book we are?"

"More than you do."

"You'd better read me in."

With a pointed look at Gary, Brigatti undid her seatbelt and turned to face the back seat. He figured being unbuckled wouldn't kill her if they weren't moving. 

"Detective Paul Armstrong," Brigatti said, pointing at Armstrong, and then Addie's mom, "this is Rachel Pemberton. She's the key witness for the prosecution in the case against Dennis Guyette."

Armstrong let out a low whistle.

"Guyette, as in wanna-be Senator Guyette?" Gary asked. "The mob's prodigal son? How'd you get wrapped up in that?"

Rachel shrugged. She had the same soft brown eyes as Addie, though hers were a lot more haunted. "It's a long story."

"And this," Brigatti told Rachel, "is Gary Hobson."

"I know. I mean, I didn't know your name for sure, you never told us, but I know you." 

"How?" Brigatti and Armstrong asked at the same time. Gary shifted in his seat. This could go south fast. 

"Last October, you saved my husband's life. Mike flipped his four-wheeler going up a sand dune, but you got him out."

Gary remembered. "Down at the south lakeshore." She'd looked different then, with a ponytail and a Cubs maternity shirt over a pronounced bump that must have been Addie. She'd listened when Gary had told her not to ride up a sand dune. Her husband hadn't, and Gary'd barely made it up the dune in time to pull Mike out of his four-wheeler as it rolled down the hill. 

She nodded. "Turns out someone messed with the engine and the brakes, but you were long gone before we figured that out." 

"Of course," Brigatti muttered. Gary didn't know which part she meant.

Rachel waggled the platypus so that its fur tickled Addie's nose. "Do you make a habit of saving people's lives, or just my family?"

Gary rolled his eyes at the twin snorts from the front seat. "Seems like you need it. You have some pretty powerful enemies." There was a whole lot about the Guyette family Gary hadn't bothered to learn, but he'd heard rumors for years. People who crossed Phillip Guyette, the grandfather of the guy on trial, tended to end up in the Chicago River. "Is Mike--is he in hiding, too?"

"Hobson," Brigatti warned. One look at her face and Gary regretted the question.

"Not anymore." Rachel's shadowed smile vanished. "He died six weeks ago. It's just me and Addie now. Mike named her Addison."

Gary wanted to know how the guy had died and why he'd missed it--missed it, when he'd saved him once before--but Brigatti gave her head a little shake. "Addison," he echoed instead, and remembered the matching shirts Rachel and Mike had been wearing that day. "Cubs fans?"

She nodded. "If we'd had a boy, we would have named him Clark."

Addie blinked at Gary. "Ba." She reached out her arms. "Ba!" she insisted.

"I think she wants you," Rachel said, and sure enough, when Gary held out his hands, Addie leaned--or fell, really--toward him. He held her under her arms and stood her on his lap. She stuck out her tongue.

"She's really cute," Gary said, but even as he stuck out his own tongue, he caught the look Brigatti exchanged with Armstrong. They knew more about this whole thing than he did--of course they did--but he knew enough. If the things the news was saying about the Guyette family's long-hidden history and the grandson's new exploits were true--and what was public was probably the tip of the iceberg--they were ruthless. 

Ruthless enough to take a baby to shut her mother up. Ruthless enough to kill her daddy, and try to kill her mother and a cop.

Brigatti reached back and fingered one of Addie's curls. "Dennis's grandfather, Phillip, has been running illegal rackets--counterfeit, weapons, drugs--since the fifties at least, and the family business goes back a few generations before him. Dennis's father Maurice broke off from it all before Dennis was even born, but Dennis got back in when he needed campaign funding."

"Yeah, but Phillip Guyette's on his deathbed. Has been for months," Armstrong said.

"The organization is bigger than Phillip, bigger than Dennis," Rachel snapped. She curled her hands into fists, and her knuckles turned white. "I keep telling you, Toni, there's more to it than the laundered money, but I--fucking Dennis. That creep made me believe he was clean, like his father. I thought he could change the world, and it turns out he's just another power-hungry politician who went running back to Grandpa to buy his way into office."

Brigatti's eyes narrowed. "You think there's more to it than what you found in Dennis's books?"

"I don't know," Rachel said. "But Mike seemed to think so, at least at first. He thought it didn't make sense that Dennis was masterminding the money laundering through his campaign. Dennis didn't even understand the campaign finance laws he asked me to subvert." 

"Did Mike see something else when you two went diving into the records?"

"I don't know, I--" Rachel shook her head. "It was probably just a hunch. He knew better than to keep a secret like that from me."

"I would hope so." Brigatti's narrow gaze shot to Gary, not long enough for Armstrong to notice, but long enough for Gary to feel it. "Seems like there are already plenty of secrets to go around. Phillip must have another second in command somewhere. Has to, if they're still coming after us with Dennis awaiting trial. Somehow, even with Phillip deep in dementia, they have people everywhere." She fixed Armstrong with a steely look, loaded with history. Gary suspected he didn't know all of it, but he understood why she said, "Even the department. I'm paranoid for a reason, Paul. We both know how bad things can get."

Gary knew it, too. No way was this over; no way was Gary done. Addie blew a raspberry at him, making him grin in spite of everything. He didn't want to be done, not even when something warm and wet dripped down the leg of Addie's blue sleeper onto his leg.

"I think we got a smaller problem," Gary told Rachel.

"Oh, shit, I'm sorry. Toni?" Rachel asked. "I know this is a terrible time to ask, but Addie's soaked, and in about half an hour she'll be hungry again, and you know how that goes. We left everything at the house."

"Everything but Fred," Gary said, trying to break up the dark mood.

"Everything but Fred," Rachel echoed in a whisper. "And Addie."

Addie reached for the bill of Gary's cap. "Ba." 

"Ball?" Gary guessed. 

She clapped her hands--or tried to. More like she waved them toward each other. "Strike and a miss," Gary told her. 

"Ba!" 

He took off the hat and she grabbed for it, sucking on the brim. "That's gotta be disgusting."

"It's okay," Rachel said. "She's happy, she's--" She ran a hand over the top of Addie's head. "She's alive." She took Addie back. Gary brushed half-heartedly at the spot on his leg; he really didn't care. When he looked up again, Brigatti fixed him with a thoughtful stare.

"What?"

"I'm not leaving them," she said, nodding at Rachel and Addie. "And they're not going in that store. I need Paul at the wheel in case anyone finds us here. That leaves you."

Gary gauged the distance from their spot to the store's entrance. The parking lot was about three times the size of the safe house's backyard. What if someone did find them? What if he was trapped out in the middle of that concrete ocean and couldn't move fast enough on his rapidly stiffening ankle? What if something happened to Brigatti and he couldn't get back to her?

"I'll drop you off at the entrance," Armstrong said, as if he'd read Gary's mind. "We'll circle the parking lot a couple times, so wait inside the doors until you see us coming by. Here--" He pulled out his wallet and handed Gary a pair of twenties. 

Brigatti nodded. "No cards, no checks." She tugged his hat away from Addie, who squeaked in protest. "Wipe off your face with the blanket, and wear this as low as you can. Keep away from cameras."

"All this fuss for a pack of diapers? What happens if you guys have to take off without me?" 

"You take a cab home." Armstrong put the car back into gear and headed toward the entrance. "Or spend a lovely afternoon in Cicero."

Gary looked at Brigatti. "You said they could find me by my Jeep."

"That'll take time. We have a couple hours before they put the pieces together. They can't find you here, unless you call your bar from a pay phone or use a credit card." Brigatti's mouth twisted in the good way that meant she felt sure enough of herself to tease him just a little. "And I know not even you can be that stupid."

"You sure about that?" Armstrong asked. 

"Leave him alone, you two." Rachel turned to Gary. "Size three diapers--whatever brand is cheapest--and a can of formula. We'll worry about food later. We'll need at least one bottle, too. She likes the kind with the airflow attachment. And she'll need clothes, a sleeper or something at least, size nine months, though some of those are short, so maybe twelve--and for the love of everything holy, no pink. Do you have enough?"

"No credit cards," Brigatti insisted.

Normally Gary would have protested being turned into an errand boy, or at least demanded a written list, but Addie was doing her wave-clap thing at him and shouting, "Ba!" as happy as if she hadn't almost been blown up, kidnapped, and maybe worse in the past couple hours. 

"I have more cash in my wallet. I'll get what I can," Gary told Rachel. "What about a car seat?"

"Exactly how much cash do you carry?" Armstrong asked. "Those things start at two hundred bucks."

Brigatti shook her head. "A guy alone paying cash for a car seat would draw attention. Stick with the basics." She scanned the parking lot as Armstrong drove toward the store, and her words came out tight and sharp, as if she were directing a raid. "In and out. You've got ten minutes, tops."

"Just be sure you guys come back for me."

Armstrong pulled up to the entrance. Gary hauled himself out, putting as little weight on his left ankle as possible, then leaned through the half-open door.

"Brig--"

"No names!" she snapped. The woman was coming unglued.

He got one last shot in as he slammed the door. "Put your seatbelt on!"

~*~*~*~


	2. Chapter 2

"Delano's either compromised, or something happened to him," Toni said as Paul drove them in a slow circle around the parking lot. "And I can't go back to the station to find out. Guyette must have people there. One person, at least, and one is enough. If they find out Rachel is alive, they'll come after her again. "

"Or Addie," Rachel said. She had that same fierce note in her voice that she got when she talked about testifying for Mike's sake. "They can't have her, Toni."

"They won't." That much wasn't even up for discussion. "But things are a lot more complicated now. If they figure out who Hobson is, they'll try to get to him, too, to find out what he knows. They can't know where any of us are. They can't even know we made it out."

"But they do. Or they will," Paul said. "The fire department won't find any bodies in that house. And the guy who tried to take the baby--" He gave Toni a sidelong glance. "You left him alive."

"Are you saying I shouldn't have?" She knew she sounded defensive, but she'd been thinking the same thing. If that guy had had a chance to fire back, he wouldn't have gone for her shoulder.

"No, I'm saying you _did_ , and now it's another reason they won't believe they got you--any of you."

"He never saw Rachel."

"They'll know you wouldn't leave without her."

Toni pushed her lips together and tapped a staccato beat on the armrest. He was right. She had a reputation. Five years in WITSEC with the U.S. Marshals. It was why she'd been pulled from a homicide investigation when this case had come up. She was the whole reason the Marshals and the CPD were cooperating, albeit reluctantly, in the first place. No one would believe Antonia Brigatti would leave her witness to die.

A thought niggled at her--that maybe, because no one would expect it, she _should_ leave Rachel--not to die, of course, and not that she actually would leave Rachel's detail, but it _would_ be the one thing no one would expect. She just wasn't sure how to orchestrate that, or if it would be worth the effort.

She shook the thought away. Stick with the basics. "So we pull whatever strings we can to keep the body count--or the fact there isn't one--out of the news for as long as possible. We'll get Hobson's Jeep out of there and hope they don't notice it. And I'll take Rachel and--"

"And what?"

"Deep cover. Find a bunker somewhere." She flopped back in her seat. "Head for Canada."

"The trial's in two days," Rachel said. "They are _not_ going to scare me away, Toni, that's the point."

"I know." They coasted by the entrance. No sign of Hobson yet, so Paul kept going. "I have to keep you alive, remember?"

"You could ask for help." There was a dry note in Paul's voice that said he knew that was the last thing she wanted to do. "Put together enough people you know are clean to make a team--cops or your friends from the Marshals. Keep them in a hotel with full-surround, rotating protection. You'll have to have something like that set up once the trial starts, anyway." When she didn't answer--too busy staring out the window, counting trees, checking for vehicles behaving even more suspiciously than their own--he added in a lower voice, "You know I'm in, right?"

She wanted to fight him on it. Wanted to fight someone, anyone--to fight back after the crappiest morning she'd had in a long, long time--but when she looked over at him, his jaw twitched with all the stuff he _could_ have said, and was choosing to hold in instead, and she thought of an ambulance ride a few months ago and the understanding they'd come to then.

"I know you are," she said, and was rewarded with a smile, or as close to a smile as Paul ever came when his kid wasn't around. "And you're right, that's what I had set up for the trial. I guess we'll just start a few days earlier. At a different hotel. With a different team." 

Paul still didn't quite smile, but his eyes definitely twinkled when he said, "And Hobson. Can't wait to hear what he has to say when you tell him you're going to lock him up in a hotel for a week or so."

Toni groaned. "He was enough of a pain in the butt the first time I tried-- _tried_ \--to keep him under wraps." Back when he hadn't been the complete distraction he was now. "If they don't come after him in a day or so, I'll probably cut him loose."

"No," Rachel said, so firmly Toni twisted around to face her despite the seatbelt. Addie had fallen asleep and lay sprawled across Rachel's lap. She was like a puppy that way, bouncing all over the place one minute and sacked out the next. How the kid could look so relaxed when the person holding her was tense as a prizefighter before a match, Toni had no idea. "No way are you letting him out there when these people might get him."

As if Toni could stop him, if "out there" was where he wanted to be. 

"You have to know Hobson," Paul said. "He's not normal. Trust me, you won't want to spend more time locked up with him than you have to."

"I don't _care_ if he's normal. He saved our lives today. He saved Addie. And Mike--don't say it," she said when Toni opened her mouth. "He gave me six months with Mike that I wouldn't have had. Mike got six months with Addie he wouldn't have had. I _know_ the Guyette family, Toni. I've been living with their threats since before Addie was born. If they found us in Oak Brook, they can find out about Gary, and I won't--I can't--" Addie stirred in her arms, and Rachel propped her up against her shoulder. Her voice dropped. "I can't lose anyone else."

"We talked about this," Toni told her. "Not _this_ , this--" Because she hadn't planned on Hobson, and once he'd shown up her plans were blown all to bits, as usual. "But about the protection detail during the trial. It's going to frustrate the hell of out you as it is. No diaper runs or coffee shops. Even Addie's naps and feedings have to stick to a schedule that fits your court appearances. When you're not in court, you'll be in a hotel room. No phone calls, no trips to the pool, no meals in the restaurant. Not even an open window. It's a pressure cooker, especially with a baby, but I've done it before. Add in another person--"

"Especially that person," Paul said, with a nod at the entrance, where Hobson stood, bags dangling from his hands. A perfect target if Toni ever saw one, and they were halfway across the parking lot. She rolled her eyes.

"--and it'll be even more crowded, even more pressure," she finished. "Not that I'd throw him to the wolves, and I will fight him if he tries to run off on his own, but I can pretty much guarantee you he will try, and if he does, I have no way to make him stay."

"I'm not so sure about that," Rachel said. "I saw how he looked at you--" Paul snorted, and Toni whapped his arm. "--and back at the park, I saw what he did."

"Perfect example," Toni said. "I'm standing there with a gun and he has to be _told_ to duck down so I can get a clear shot."

Paul stopped the car at the entrance and popped open the trunk. While Hobson loaded the sacks, Rachel leaned forward. "But he did duck," she whispered in the ear farthest from Paul. Toni could hear the smirk in her voice. "He did exactly what you told him to do the second you called him Gary."

"That doesn't mean anything."

Rachel sat back. "It means you have to protect him. He's one of us."

Really, Toni thought, it would be easier to just put her head through the windshield than to figure all this out.

Hobson slid back into his seat. He looked from Toni to Rachel as he opened a pack of diapers. "What?"

Toni turned to face the front. Sure, she'd used Hobson's first name, but not on purpose. It had just slipped out. And it had gotten his attention, so she wasn't sorry. Not even a little. Not even if someone else had noticed. 

"You gonna sit here all day?" she snapped at Paul.

He shrugged, all nonchalance and perfect suit, and pulled away from the entrance. "Where to next?"

"Behind the store," Rachel said. "Please?" she added when Toni hesitated. "I have to change Addie, and I can't do it when we're all scrunched together. There's nothing back there but loading docks, right? It's away from the road. Nobody'll see us."

"Yeah, sure." It wasn't as if she had any idea where to go next, anyway. Paul pulled the car between a couple dumpsters and they all got out. Rachel laid Addie on the backseat and started the process of changing the diaper and her sleeper. Toni kept a hand on her holster, standing watch over Rachel. All the obstacles that made it difficult for anyone to see them made it impossible for her to see if anyone was coming for them. She tried to breathe, to clear her head. No way could Guyette's people find them. Not here, not now.

Not yet, anyway.

"So, uh..." Hobson rested his forearms on the car's roof. He did that thing, that thing he did where he rubbed a thumb on the opposite palm. It was hypnotizing, especially when she was confused and coming off an adrenaline high. "What's next?"

She opened her mouth. Closed it. Looked at Paul, who was lounging against a dumpster in his perfectly pressed suit. His mouth twitched again, no doubt still full of all the things he was holding in. Might as well give him an outlet. "Tell him," she said.

"Oh, no. This is your operation."

"I'm guarding my witness." She pulled out her cell. "Making arrangements."

"Not on your phone, you're not," Paul said. 

Damn it, he was right again. "How am I supposed to get everything under control if I can't make phone calls?"

"Let me set up the hotel. You can--" Paul waved a hand at Hobson, who scowled. "--take care of that."

"More than one room. In more than one hotel. Once they come looking, I want them to have to search."

"I have actually done this before." He gave her a curt nod and walked off a couple paces, dialing his phone. He wouldn't give them away, and he was too smart to make a misstep. If he did, she would fix it. Sweep away their tracks, go to a completely different hotel, catch that train to Canada. Whatever it took.

"Brigatti?"

"Okay." She faced Hobson across the car. Thank God he'd ducked, she thought, and wasn't sure where the thought had come from. Another spark flying off the hamster wheel that was her brain right now. "We have to go into lockdown mode. Full protection detail, only in or out for the trial. We'll probably be moving hotels every few days."

His jaw worked; he looked out, somewhere over her shoulder, then back at her. "Every few days?"

"It's not up for a vote. This is the only way I can keep you safe, and if you're not safe, then neither--" She jerked her thumb at Rachel's butt; the rest of her was leaning over Addie in the backseat. "--are they. These people are hardcore. That guy today would have killed you to get Addie." 

"He didn't." Toni braced herself for the "but." Instead, Hobson looked at her, his serious eyes nearly green in the bright sunlight. They did that, changed on her. All the time. "He didn't, thanks to you."

She pushed that away with a wave of her hand. If he thought he could sweet-talk his way out of this, he had another think coming. "Look, Hobson, I don't care about your errands or your bar or your cat or your urges for the next week or so. I care about you--and them--alive at the end of this."

"Good to know."

"But?" Might as well get it over with.

"But--" He looked down at his thumb, still drawing slow circles over his palm. "But I hate room service food."

She rolled her eyes. "We'll order pizza. I seem to remember you like Cafe Carlucci. That make you happy?"

His jaw twitched at the mention of the restaurant, but he said, "Absolutely." 

It was a full ten seconds before she could snap her jaw shut. Why was he giving in?

"It's not right." Rachel straightened up. She held Addie, who was awake again and dressed in a new sleeper covered with tiny yellow ducks. Hobson had more sense than Toni'd given him credit for; the thing actually fit. Rachel bounced Addie, who was starting to fuss. Bottle time. "This won't work."

Toni sighed. Rachel was the last one she thought she'd have to convince. "I've been telling you all along, this is how it will have to be during the trial. We're just starting a few days early."

"No, Toni, I--" Rachel broke off as Addie moaned. "Did you get the formula?" she asked Hobson.

Toni checked the entrances to the lot. They were still alone, but that could change any second. Especially if anyone heard Addie, so she'd better let feeding time play out. She waved Hobson to the trunk. He dug through the bags and pulled out a new bottle, the familiar yellow can of formula, and a liter of bottled water. "How does this work?" he asked.

"I got it," Paul said, and set to work measuring out formula and water with the same ease with which Hobson mixed drinks in his bar.

"Toni, I need you to understand," Rachel said. "I don't want Addie in a hotel room for days on end. That much confinement and tension will be horrible for her, and she makes noise, you know she does." As if to prove her point, Addie's whimpering turned into her barky "Feed Me" cry. 

Toni scanned the lot, but didn't see anyone. Unless they were behind the trucks lined up at the docks. Or the other dumpsters. Or the employees' cars. "Hurry up," she told Paul. He rolled his eyes at her, gave the bottle a shake, and handed it to Rachel. Addie stopped crying as soon as she got a hand on the bottle; closed her eyes as she drank, as if this thing, this one simple thing, was the most relaxing, blissful activity in the whole world.

In her world, it was. What killed Toni was that this was how Addie drank every bottle.

"Who'll be with her while I'm in court?" Rachel asked. Of course she wouldn't let it drop.

"I promise you, we'll have our best people on your detail. She'll be fully protected."

"No, Toni, _you_ are the best. That's why they put you on my case. Your chorus line of cops can get me to and from the courtroom. Once the trial starts, there's no way the Guyettes will dare touch me, that's what you've been saying." 

She had been saying it, true, but only because it was what she hoped. What the Guyettes would actually do was anyone's guess.

"This--" Rachel's hands were busy holding Addie and her bottle, but she made a motion with her head that took in all of them. "Today, whatever it was, that was their last shot at me. Now they've played their hand, and if anything happens to me, the list of charges against Dennis will get longer. The only way he'll walk now is if I'm alive but not testifying. And the only way that would happen--" She stopped and gulped, watching Addie drink.

"It won't happen," Toni told her, but Rachel shook her head.

"The _only_ way that would happen is if they had my daughter. And the only way I know that _won't_ happen is if my daughter is with you." She looked down at Toni, just a few inches taller but determined and desperate enough to make Toni take a step back. "I'll go with Detective Armstrong, if you trust him. I'll do whatever you say. But I don't want Addie anywhere near that trial. I want you to take her." She drew in a deep breath and looked from Toni to Hobson. "Both of you. Take her and keep her safe. Between the two of you, you've already saved her life once today. I know you can protect her until this is over."

Toni stared at her. "You can't be serious." Rachel giving up Addie, even for a few days, needed time to sink in. And she most emphatically did _not_ want to hear from the peanut gallery of her brain that was telling her this was the solution, the way to do the last thing anyone would expect her to do. She looked at Hobson and Paul, who stood there not helping, not objecting, as if this actually made sense.

Hobson stared back, waiting for her to--to do what? Agree to co-nanny with him? Fat chance. Paul--the traitor--gave a little shrug, as if he was actually considering it. "It isn't the worst idea I've heard," he said. "All together, we make a pretty memorable group, and an easier target. If we have to split up, so do the people who are after Ms. Pemberton."

"I'm Rachel," Rachel said. "And thank you. Look, Toni, this is about numbers. About percentages. I don't know the exact figures, but I do know the odds of the Guyettes finding us decrease if we split up, and I know Addie has a much higher chance of survival if she's away from me. But only if she's with you. I trust those percentages a lot more than I trust the Guyettes."

"It'd make it harder for them to find any of us if we confuse the trail," Paul finished. "We could set it up like there really is a baby in those rooms."

"But if there's a leak on our side, they'll know it's fake."

"We'll put together a team that doesn't leak. And if the worst happens and it does, it'll at least buy us more time. You two could get out of town, pose as a--"

"Don't say it," she snapped. 

"It's not beyond the realm of possibility." Paul gave another infuriating shrug. "Addie even looks like she could be yours--or his, if you squint. Or both of yours."

Toni was so, so tired of everyone else being right. "No." She turned on Rachel. Height disadvantage or not, Toni was the one in charge. "You're my witness. You're my responsibility. There's no way I can do this."

"Come on, Toni," Paul said. "You know I'll take point on Rachel's protection."

"You can't just pick your own assignments. Aren't you on vice right now?"

"I can choose if it matters this much. People owe me favors."

That was the whole problem with the CPD, that network of favors and favoritism and absolute _crap_ that got in the way of actual justice, over and over again. That must have been what had happened to Delano.

But she trusted Paul. More than her partner, more than her captain. He'd step in front of a bullet for Rachel. She didn't even have to ask. She knew. And she was just drained enough, just backed into this corner enough, to start thinking about this as a real possibility. Even if it included Hobson.

Okay, maybe because it included Hobson. Not that she would ever let on about that. If she brought him along, it would be for his own good, and the good of the rest of the protection detail, so they wouldn't have to listen to his whining twenty-four-seven.

Rachel turned Addie to face her, a dirty trick if Toni'd ever seen one. Addie pulled the bottle out of her mouth and beamed, showing her half-grown front teeth. She reached for Toni's hair, which had become one of her favorite things to grab. And tangle. And suck on, occasionally. Toni gave her a fake scowl, which made Addie laugh and stick out her tongue.

The _dirtiest_ trick.

"I'm asking you to do this for her," Rachel said. "She's the only thing I have left that matters more than putting that asshole in jail. The Guyettes know it. Even if they didn't get what they wanted today, they sent a message, loud and clear. They know how to get to me, how to own me. I will never be able to sit in that courtroom for even an hour knowing she's not protected by the absolute best. If I look up from the witness stand and see you sitting in that courtroom instead of with Addie, I don't know if I'll be able to testify."

She was telling the truth, not making a threat. The case against Dennis Guyette--and by extension, his grandfather--would never get anywhere without the evidence Rachel could give. "Do you understand what you're asking? If we split up, you won't be able to see her. You won't be the one feeding her or dressing her or giving her baths for a few days, maybe even a few weeks. Won't that break you anyway?"

Rachel tightened her hold on Addie. "Not if it's you. You've been with us ever since--for weeks. You know her routines as well as I do. You were amazing today. You and--" she turned to Hobson. "--you. Whatever they mean about your 'feelings' or 'urges,' however you knew about the explosion, I know you'll take care of her." She rested her cheek on top of Addie's head, and for the second time that day, Toni saw tears. "Of both of them."

"I do not need taking care of." Especially not by Hobson. 

Especially not when he said things like, "Of course I'll look out for them."

"This is my operation," Toni reminded them.

"It's Addie's _life_ ," Rachel said. "And you're the only ones I trust."

At the other end of the parking lot, a truck roared to life. Toni hadn't even seen the driver get in. 

"Let's go." She waved them all back inside the car. "Take the long way home," she told Paul. "Or wherever," she added when he opened his mouth, no doubt to ask whose home she meant. "We need to make more arrangements."

~*~*~*~

Gary knew he was supposed to fight Brigatti on this. Marissa was right; it was how they did things, and sooner or later Brigatti would want to know why he wasn't trying to duck out on her. But for now he was too relieved she was alive, and too worried about what might happen to her in the next few hours, to even pretend he didn't want to stick with her.

The easy assumption was that her obituary was gone now that they were away from the house, but without the paper, he couldn't be sure she'd make it through the day. Ever since he'd found Snow's letter, he'd tried to trust the paper more, to go with its flow even when he couldn't see where it would lead him. Some days it worked. Some days, like today, he ran up against the reality that he didn't have any choice in the matter, and it scared the hell out of him.

So he agreed to Rachel's plan, even though he could feel Brigatti's annoyance when he didn't protest. It was in her stiff posture and the suspicious glares she darted at him out of the corner of her eye, though she refused to turn around and look at him for the half an hour it took to get from Cicero to the city. She was dying to get into an argument, and he was the natural target, wasn't he? Maybe she needed the outlet after the morning they'd had. 

"Where do you want me to drop you off?" Armstrong asked. Rachel's arms tightened around Addie.

"My place," Gary said.

"No." Brigatti fixed him with a full-on death glare. "No, no, _no_."

"Ba ba _ba_!" Addie crowed, matching her cadence exactly. Rachel and Armstrong laughed; Gary did his best to keep a straight face.

"No way could they have figured out who I am yet, isn't that what you said? We've got time, and I'd kill for an aspirin. We need money, at least. I can get it from the bar."

"For once in his life, he's right," Armstrong said. 

"Once?" Gary asked. 

Armstrong shrugged. "You do need some cash, and you both look--" He waved a hand between them.

" _What_?" Brigatti snapped.

"Like you've been on the wrong side of an explosion," he finished drily. "Come on, Toni, you go out on the street looking like that and people will notice. Make the pit stop at Hobson's. It'll give me time to get Rachel set up in the hotel and finagle you a car."

Brigatti sighed and turned resolutely forward. She was still muttering out her last arguments at Armstrong as he headed for McGinty's.

There were other reasons Gary wanted to get home for a few minutes, but he wasn't about to bring those up with Armstrong and Brigatti around. He leaned back, trying to flex his ankle some way that wouldn't cause the pain to flare up, and looked over at Rachel and Addie. Rachel chewed her lip; her eyes were red-rimmed. 

"You sure you want to do this?" he asked her. She nodded, and seemed about to say something, but at that moment Addie stuck out her tongue at Gary. He did the same, which made her grin and burble, then met Rachel's eyes. "I'm sorry." 

She wiped her nose with the back of her hand. "Sorry for what?"

"That it came down to this." That he couldn't save her husband, whatever had happened to him. "That I didn't get there sooner, before that guy ever got his hands on Addie. That I couldn't knock him out for good, or pull the ladder out from under him, or stop him, so they wouldn't know, and you wouldn't have to split up with your kid. I'm sorry."

Rachel ran her hand over Addie's head, as if she could tame the curls. "You would have had to kill him to stop him. Not being able to do that doesn't make you sorry. It makes you kind. And Addie could use some kindness in her life right now."

"From me?" He was practically a stranger, after all.

"And Toni." Rachel lowered her voice, smiled, though it looked pained. "She's been fantastic to Addie. I think she's smitten."

"Smitten?" Brigatti?

"Are you saying my baby can't smite people with her adorableness?"

He chuckled. "No, ma'am. And if she's half as brave as you are, she'll be fine." 

Rachel's voice became a whisper, threaded with cracks. "Promise you'll make this work?"

The last thing this woman needed was another broken promise. But Gary nodded. "We will." That got Brigatti to look back at him for half a second without the daggers in her eyes; he thought he saw her nod.

Maybe "nod" was an exaggeration. More like a slight downward tilt of her chin.

At Brigatti's insistence, Armstrong drove by the alley behind the bar twice to make sure no one was there before he pulled in and parked. Gary left Toni and Rachel to say their good-byes while he hauled the bags of baby stuff out of the trunk. "Take the fire escape up to your place." Armstrong rested his hand on the holster strapped to his side. "What your staff doesn't know, they can't tell anyone who comes looking for you later."

Gary nodded. "We won't be long." Not that he had any idea where they were headed next. 

"Gotta hand it to you." One corner of Armstrong's mouth quirked up. "Usually you spread your disasters out over days, but I haven't been awake more than a few hours and we've already had an explosion, a fire, a shooting and an attempted kidnapping. You want to explain any of it?"

Gary slammed the trunk shut. "Nope."

Armstrong must have still been in a good mood, or whatever kind of mood this was. He pointed at Gary as he headed back into the car. "One of these days, Hobson. You, me, and a syringe of truth serum."

"Kinky." Brigatti patted Rachel's shoulder, then closed the passenger door and held Addie out to Gary. "But we don't have time right now. Hobson, take the kid."He held up the plastic bags bulging with diapers, formula, and clothes. Brigatti rolled her eyes. "You made it down the ladder with her. I think you can manage the fire escape."

Addie grabbed onto his shirt the minute he took her, as though she knew he needed help holding onto everything. "And what will you do while I'm Sherpa-ing all this stuff?" he asked Brigatti.

She drew her gun out of its holster. "I'm covering you. I'll handle the gun, you handle the bottles."

"Fine, but we split the diapers." He started up the fire escape, well aware of Rachel watching them from the car; of Brigatti just behind him, stepping on his heels. He was kind of glad to have the baby, because otherwise he wouldn't put it past Brigatti to fire off a shot to encourage him to go faster. He'd just slipped in the window when he heard the car pull out of the alley. One step in, and Brigatti was already there with him, slamming the window closed. She stalked over to the bathroom door and opened it, and then the wardrobe.

"No boogeymen?" he asked. She rolled her eyes. He dropped the bags on the coffee table--no paper there--and headed for the door.

"No way." Brigatti slipped in front of him and braced a hand on the door frame. 

"I have to get petty cash."

"You are not leaving this loft, especially not with the baby. "

Gary looked down at Addie, who watched the two of them with wide eyes. Poor kid probably thought Mom would show up any second. "Okay, then, you take her."

To his surprise, Brigatti holstered her gun and held out her arms. But even when she had Addie, bouncing her a little and rubbing her back, she stayed planted in the doorway. "Your staff cannot know you are here."

"But the money's downstairs." And the paper, if it wasn't in here, could be somewhere out there, too. Not to mention Marissa, who was probably still trying to contact Brigatti.

"Then we'll do without it." Her nose twitched. "Don't you have any cash stashed up here?" 

"A little," he admitted. 

"Then get it an--and--" Brigatti's face contorted, and then her whole body jerked with a sneeze that she somehow kept silent. Addie, who seemed to think adults existed solely to entertain her, burst into a squealy giggle. Brigatti put a finger on Addie's lips. "Shhhh!" Addie pulled the finger into her mouth. "You and your damned cat."

Thing was, Gary didn't see Cat, anymore than he saw the paper. He needed to check the landing. But there was more than one way to get around Brigatti. "Fine. I'll just take care of my ankle. That okay with you?" She nodded. He limped deliberately over to the bathroom, making sure he put all his weight on his good foot as he hit the squeakiest floorboard. He got an Ace bandage and sat on his bed, while Toni took Addie to the couch and pulled a diaper out of a bag. 

"Again?" he asked. He unlaced his tennis shoe and dropped it, making sure it landed right over the desks in the office below. Ten, nine, eight...

"It's been forty minutes, maybe an hour." Brigatti unsnapped the sleeper with practiced ease. "And she's had a bottle. And she's eight months old."

Gary wrapped the bandage tight around his ankle. Four, three, two--

There. The snap of heels and a cane on the stairs. He heard it just before Brigatti did. By the time she jumped to her feet, one hand on her holster and the other hovering over the squirming baby on the couch, he'd hobbled halfway to the door, trailing the loose end of the bandage. 

"What are you _doing_?" Brigatti looked frantically from the door to Addie, who'd already rolled onto her side. She plopped the kid, her sleeper half off, flat on her back on the floor. "You are not letting anyone in."

"It's Marissa."

Brigatti's voice dropped so low it was almost white noise. "I told you, your staff can't know you're here."

"Marissa's not staff," he whispered back. A familiar silhouette filled the mottled glass top of the door. "She's my--"

"Gary?" Marissa's question was tentative, but her knock was firm. "Is that you? Please--on the news they said the house burned to the ground. I need to know you're okay."

He was maybe two strides from the door, but Brigatti slipped past him and gave his bum ankle a nudge. Too late, he remembered how his football coach had always told him to wrap both ankles, so the defense wouldn't know which side was the weak one. " _Ow_!"

"Gary!" The door handle rattled. 

"Damn it." Brigatti threw open the lock, yanked Marissa in, and took a half-step out, leaving Gary to lunge and catch Marissa as she pitched forward. Her cane careened out of her hand, landing near the pinball machine. 

Marissa clutched at his arm as they both straightened up. "Gary, what--who--"

"It's okay." The words gritted out between his teeth. He _really_ needed an aspirin. Or maybe five.

"Who else knows we're here?" Brigatti closed the door and locked it. At least she kept her gun pointed down.

"Toni?" Marissa's fingers dug into Gary's arm. "You're here? You're--my God, are you all right?"

There was a heartbeat of silence. Brigatti leveled her gaze at Gary. "Why wouldn't I be?"

He gulped, but Marissa recovered, releasing her hold and wrinkling her nose. "Well, for one thing, you guys smell like smoke."

"But you called Paul Armstrong." Though she was talking to Marissa, Brigatti watched Gary retrieve the cane. "And you had to have called him before the explosion."

"You were there." Marissa's eyes widened; Gary could practically see the pieces coming together in her head. 

"It was on the news?" Brigatti asked. She still had a grip on her gun.

Marissa nodded. "They think it was a gas leak. They said there might be casualties."

"Probably the guy Brigatti--"

"Hobson!" Brigatti looked ready to shoot him.

"What happened at that house?" Marissa demanded.

"Look, both of you, this is--" It was a mess, and he had to find the paper. "--it'll be okay. Brigatti, if you give us a minute, we'll go down to the office, where no one else is, right, Marissa?" She looked baffled, but nodded. "We'll go down there and settle up some business stuff, and I'll be right back. Just trust me for five minutes, can you do that?"

Brigatti crossed her arms. "This isn't about who I trust. It's about who I have to keep safe. You seem hell-bent on doubling that number every hour or so."

"Safe from what?" Marissa asked.

"That's confidential." Brigatti sighed, and some of tension went out of her. "You know Hobson's okay. Now head back down and do not tell anyone we were here."

"You are _not_ serious." The look on Marissa's face made Gary glad she wasn't the one holding a deadly weapon. Not that Brigatti was a much better choice. Marissa took the cane when Gary tapped the handle against her arm, but she trapped his hand, too, squeezing tight. "I've spent the past couple hours praying you weren't dead. Meanwhile I'm waiting for someone, anyone, to call me back about Toni. I think I deserve an explanation."

Gary looked questioningly at Brigatti, but she shook her head. Of course he wouldn't tell Marissa names or details, but he knew she'd been scared. It was a big part of why he'd made sure she could hear them. "Look, Marissa, I can't--"

"Ba ba!"

Marissa started. "Who is _that_?"

Gary looked down. Somehow or other, Addie had made it over to them. She had her little hands wrapped around Marissa's cane and was trying to pull it into her mouth. Gary scooped her up and wrestled her arms back into the sleeper; she grinned and wiggled like a fish. "Marissa, this is Addison."

Brigatti threw up her hands. Gary flinched. Probably shouldn't have said the name, but it was too late now. "Ba doo!" Addie crowed. She grabbed Marissa's finger and pulled it toward her mouth.

"I give up," Marissa said as Addie gnawed on her knuckle.

"Yeah." Brigatti holstered her gun, but shot Gary a disgusted look. "I know the feeling."

The ice under Gary's feet was so thin, he could practically hear it crack. If Brigatti kicked him to the curb now, he couldn't keep her safe. "It's a long story, Marissa," he said. "We're just here for a pit stop. We need all the cash we have on hand." He squinted at Brigatti, who was covered with plaster dust and soot. "And you two should trade shirts. Brigatti's is kinda--toast."

Brigatti snorted. "Like you look any better?"

Marissa chewed on her lip for a minute, stroking Addie's fingers with her thumb. "Gary, is Addison--are all of you-- _going_ to be okay?"

Even though Brigatti's eyes narrowed as she caught the scent of a secret, Gary couldn't blame Marissa for asking about the paper. She was scared. At this point, so was he. "I don't know," he admitted

"You guys are in trouble." It wasn't a question. 

"You could say that," Gary said. Brigatti's deepening scowl told Gary that was all he should say.

"And you don't want anyone else to know you're here. I'm not even supposed to know." 

"Look, Marissa--"

She held up her free hand. "I get it. I'm just glad--" She stopped, gulped down--what? Gary had a feeling he'd hear about it later. "I'll go down and get a uniform shirt. If you guys weren't here, I probably shouldn't be wearing Toni's clothes." She turned to Brigatti. "Then you can have my blouse. This child is hungry. Is she eating solid foods yet?"

"If you call mushed up vegetables solid. But you can't go making baby food in front of your staff."

"I was thinking applesauce. We have a couple jars downstairs. I'll tell them I want some for lunch."

"That'll work."

Marissa nodded and tugged her finger out of Addie's grip. "I'll be back in a few minutes."

"Better give the secret knock," Gary said drily. 

As soon as Marissa had gone, Brigatti threw the lock and spun on him, arms stiff at her sides, vibrating with anger, even though Addie let out her deep belly laugh and reached for her. "Do you have any idea what you've done?"

Gary bounced Addie and she giggled some more. "Do you have any idea how far we'd get without some help?"

"A couple hours ago I didn't need any help." Brigatti stalked to the kitchen counter and picked up the phone, turning it over in her hands, looking for something. "Then you showed up."

"Thinking you were fine on your own nearly got you killed. It isn't my fault the house blew up, or that some guy was there trying to take the baby."

A look crossed Brigatti's face, like she was trying to remember something, or catch a thought, but she shook her head and it vanished. "Your interference will get _all_ of us killed if you don't do exactly what I tell you to do." She wedged the blade of a butter knife into the headset and pried it open. 

Still gurgling, Addie reached for his hat. Gary pulled it off and gave it to her. After this morning, a little drool couldn't hurt it, and a little sweat and dirt couldn't hurt her. Much as he wanted to check the landing for the paper, he was pretty sure Brigatti would pull out her gun again if he opened the door. He'd had enough of that for one day. And if it had been sitting right there, Marissa would have found it with her cane. He moved closer to the counter instead. "What are you doing?"

"Checking your phone for bugs. I need to talk to Paul, make sure he's got our next move covered." She poked around the inside of the phone for a few seconds, then sighed and looked up at him. "This is my operation, Hobson. If you don't think I can do it right, then get off the train right now, because the next time you go behind my back like that, I will ditch you. You'll be lucky if I don't shoot you. I didn't want to come here in the first place, and now I have to figure out yet another angle in this mess."

"Marissa's not an angle. She needed to know we're okay, the both of us." Addie dropped his hat; he stood her on the counter, keeping a tight grip while her sleeper-covered feet slipped all over the metal surface. "You know she'll never tell a soul we were here or where we're going." How could she, if he didn't know enough to tell her? He was starting to wonder if even Brigatti knew what came next. 

She snapped the headset back together. "I guess you figure if you can trust her with your big secret, I can trust her with this one? Even if it costs Rachel and Addie their lives?"

Gary let Addie fall onto him; she clutched at his shirt when he gave her a squeeze. "Marissa won't give anything away, no matter what. She's--" Gary swallowed hard as the enormity of what "no matter what" might mean caught up with him.

"Exactly." Brigatti pointed the headset at him like a weapon. "That guy who set the bomb and tried to take Addie--what happens when he shows up here? It's my job to deal with it, so let me." She punched a few numbers into the phone, and the deliberate way she did it, more than all the gun-pointing, reminded him of that night in her apartment last winter. 

"Brigatti." He waited until she stopped dialing and looked up at him. "I wasn't trying to undermine you, I just--"

"Thought you knew better than I did," she snapped. Her whole face contorted with another suppressed sneeze. "And now you've put Marissa, your staff, and every one of your customers in danger. The longer we stay, the worse it gets."

Gary shut his eyes. What the hell had he been thinking? But without the paper, he'd have no way to warn Marissa if trouble was on its way here, and where else should he have gone to look for it?

"Hey," Brigatti said. He opened his eyes; she reached for Addie. "Go change. Wash your face and shave, while you're at it."

He slid Addie, still grinning as her toes flailed at the countertop, over to Brigatti. "Not like I had time to shave this morning."

The lines around her eyes softened, and she gave a quick nod--probably the only thank-you he'd get. "Put on something different. No plaid--ah--ah--" This time, she couldn't hold in the sneeze; it shook her whole body. Addie chortled and grabbed a fistful of her hair. "Ow."

Gary tossed the box of tissues from his nightstand onto the counter for her, then fished a clean oxford and jeans out of the wardrobe. He'd just stepped into the bathroom when Brigatti said, "Hey, Hobson." 

He leaned back out. She'd perched Addie on her hip and had the phone in her hand, and Gary thought Armstrong had been right--it wasn't out of the realm of possibility that Addie could be hers. "I'll have Paul make sure a patrol car swings by here a couple times a day."

He nodded. "Thanks."

~*~*~*~

After a check of the alley--nothing there but the dumpsters, thank God--Toni collapsed in Hobson's armchair, where she could keep an eye on the windows, the bathroom door, and the door out to the landing.

"Okay, kiddo, get down and wiggle around some." Addie wasn't exactly crawling yet, but in the month or so since Toni had first seen her, she'd gone from only being able to flip herself over with a lot of grunting, to rolling and boot-camp scooting all over the floor. Toni took Fred off the coffee table and tossed him a few yards away to give Addie a goal. Then she took a deep breath and called Paul's cell. 

"Armstrong here."

"It's me. You guys okay?"

"We're on site, secure for now. I've talked to Captain Banks and called in a few favors. We'll have six people on eight-hour rotations, so there'll be two plus me with the witness. I know them all, and for what it's worth I think they're clean."

"Sounds good." She was tempted to ask if she still had a job, but wasn't sure she wanted to know the answer. If the worst did happen, Paul would no doubt be the first one to tell her anyway. "Did you set up our transport?"

"Yeah, it's in my wife's name. Has that accessory you need."

Which meant a car seat for Addie. Using Meredith's name wouldn't have been her first choice, but they needed a credit card to get a rental car. It would make sense for the Armstrongs to request a baby seat. "You're a miracle worker."

He chuckled. "Let's hold off on that until we make it through this. You need to get moving ASAP. If there really is a leak on your team, anyone who's heard even a little bit of department scuttlebutt will put you with Hobson. You taking a cab? "

She looked down at Addie, who'd rolled onto her back and was drumming on her own stomach. Give her a rock and a shell and she'd look like an otter. "Not with our baggage; someone would remember. We'll walk." It would be a bit of a hike to the rental agency at Union Station, but she felt safer among the crowds, where the Guyettes might hesitate to try anything, than she did in a cab with a stranger driving.

He rattled off the authorization number; Toni scribbled it on the cover of a month-old _TV Guide_ that didn't appear to have ever been opened. "Don't show up together to pick it up," Paul warned.

"What am I, a rookie?" She tore off the cover, folded it, and tucked it into her pocket, trying to work out the best route to Union Station.

"I'm just feeling a little protective."

"I know what you mean. Check-ins every six hours."

"Okay. And the guy you shot?" He paused, and she swore she could hear his jaw working. She braced herself for another lecture about how she should have gone for the kill, but he said, "Winslow found blood in the backyard, but the guy was long gone. We're checking the ladder for fingerprints."

"Shit." She'd replayed the sequence in her head more than once on the drive into the city, and she did it again now, from the moment she'd seen Hobson step onto the ladder to her pulling the trigger, trusting he'd get down because she'd--she'd told him to--"Oh, _shit_."

"What?"

It was never fun to admit a screw-up, but too much depended on fixing this one. "Out there in the yard, I said Hobson's name. Both of them." She sat up straight at the sound of footsteps on the stairs. Probably Marissa, but she reached for her gun just in case.

"Yeah, well, there was a lot going on. He may not have heard you," Paul said. 

"Still could have seen his Jeep." And, as Paul had said, anyone who had an ear to the ground in CPD had probably heard Hobson's name, and how he trailed around on her cases like a lost puppy.

Okay, maybe not lost. More like weird; more like confusing. A weird, confusing, overly helpful puppy who seemed to like solving mysteries with her once in a while, even though every time he showed up he presented her with one of the biggest mysteries she'd ever encountered.

There was a soft knock at the door--at least Marissa wasn't going with the barrage this time. Toni stood up. "Look, I know I'm asking a lot, but can you get dispatch to schedule drive-bys for the bar in case our friends show up? Tell them you've seen suspicious activity around the L tracks or something." Maybe that would keep any department leaks from tweaking to Hobson's role in all this. Not that she knew what the hell that role was.

"Sure thing."

"Talk to you in six hours." She hung up and stepped over Addie, who'd scooted herself half under the coffee table and was probably covered in cat hair, and opened the door. Marissa slipped past while Toni checked the landing and the stairs, then relocked the door. "Hobson's in the bathroom."

Marissa had changed into one of the blue oxfords the wait staff wore. She held out the green collared blouse she'd been wearing and a backpack. "Do you need to pat me down?" she asked wryly. 

"Sorry about earlier. I just--it's been a rough morning." Toni took the shirt and backpack.

"I get that."

They both headed toward the couch. Toni shook the backpack. "So what's all this?"

"Applesauce, a spoon, a bar towel for a bib. A first aid kit--Gary ought to carry one around with him all the time, but he never remembers. A comb and a toothbrush for you. They're new. We keep a few things around for when people have a little too much fun and want to clean up before they go home. I thought you might need them." She shrugged and sat on the couch. "Like you said, rough morning."

Toni took the backpack. "It's perfect, thank you." She checked behind her; the shower was still running. God only knew what Hobson was doing in there. At least it gave her a few minutes to slip off her holster and t-shirt and button on the blouse. 

Addie rolled and scooted her way out from under the table and latched onto the hem of Marissa's pants, tugging on them until Marissa bent down and picked her up. "Hey, sweetie," she said, running her hand over Addie's head, then chucking her under the chin. "Curlilocks. Is she a relative?"

"No." Toni stuffed the contents of the plastic bags into the backpack. Hobson had bought not just formula and diapers, but wipes, a couple of sleepers, an extra bottle, and a teething ring. It was as if he'd been trying to pass some kind of test. "But she's my responsibility right now. Not that you know that, if anyone asks."

"Of course not." Marissa bounced Addie a bit--it must be instinct, Toni thought, because everyone did. The kid loved it. "I know you can't tell me what happened this morning, or what's going on, but I--I want you to know I'm glad you're okay. So far," she added, almost under her breath.

What the hell did that mean? Toni'd had a handful of conversations with Marissa while they waited around the bar for Hobson to show up, and this wasn't the first time she'd hinted at something she wouldn't come right out and say. 

"So what else can I do to help?"

She didn't need help, Toni thought, even as she pulled the comb through her hair. More like she didn't want to need it. She plopped down on the couch next to Marissa. "You can tell me how Hobson knew to be at that house, and how you knew to call Armstrong, even though, as far as he's telling me, neither one of you knew that one thing had anything to do with the other."

Marissa frowned, probably working out what Toni had meant as much as what to say. When it came to Hobson's secrets, she always had something to say, and it was never what Toni wanted to hear. She stopped bouncing Addie, who leaned forward in her never-ending attempt to get her toes, covered or not, into her mouth. "It's true," Marissa finally said. "Gary knew something was going to happen at that house."

"Correction--he knew _exactly_ what was going to happen." Except that it'd been a bomb and not a gas leak. Maybe it was a deliberate gas leak. Marissa didn't need to know that.

"He also knew something was going to happen to you, just not when or where. He had no idea you were at the house. He asked me to try to find you. When I couldn't, I called Detective Armstrong."

All of which was old news. "I want to know how he knew." 

Marissa went stiff, the way she always did when Toni came right out and asked what Hobson's deal was. "It isn't mine to tell," she said. Which was what she always said, no matter how many times or ways Toni asked her.

"Good."

"Good?"

Well, not good that Marissa--and by extension Hobson--didn't trust Toni enough to tell her what the big deal was already. "Good, as in, you're not the kind of person who gives up secrets. You'll have to stick to that for the next few days."

She winced. "Days?"

"At least. Look, if anything weird happens, if anyone comes here asking questions, you need to call Paul Armstrong. In the meantime, don't try to contact us--you don't even know there _is _an 'us'. Tell people Hobson's visiting his parents or something, but I was never here, and neither was Addie."__

__"My God, Toni." Marissa pulled Addie closer and kissed the top of her head. "She's just a baby."_ _

__"Yeah, she is." Toni reached over to tickle Addie's toes; Addie grabbed her finger--of course--and stuck it in her mouth--of course. Good thing she only had a couple teeth. "That's why I won't let anyone hurt her. Do you have a sweater or a jacket? I need to hide my holster."_ _

__Marissa's eyes went a little wide, but she said, "Sure. It's downstairs. I'll get it when I count out the register. We just opened for the day, but there's some petty cash and--well, I'll get you what I can. I'll lock the office doors if you want to send Gary down for it."_ _

__Nice maneuver. She'd get Hobson alone and they could talk about whatever it was they'd been keeping from her from the very beginning. But Toni was willing to concede this one small battle, if it meant she got what she needed, and she'd need a boatload of cash over the next few days. "Okay, thanks. C'mere, kiddo." She took Addie, who gurgled and went after her hair again._ _

__Marissa stopped halfway to the door. "Toni, please be careful today. And take care of him."_ _

__"That's why he's with me, no matter what he thinks. Just remember--we were not here, you never talked to him, and you don't know this baby's name."_ _

__She flashed a half-hearted smile. "What baby?"_ _

__Toni set Addie down on the floor again to lock the door behind Marissa. By the time she'd turned around, Addie'd scooted herself--and Fred--halfway across the loft, and Hobson's cat, seemingly out of nowhere, had put in an appearance. "Bo!" Addie squealed, grabbing a handful of orange fur._ _

__"Oh, no, you don't." Toni stalked toward the pair. Addie laughed up at her, and the cat slipped out of her chubby little hands with Fred in its mouth. "No." She lurched for the toy. "Nononono...damn it!" she finished as the cat streaked under the bed. Of course it did. Addie, with impressive accuracy, army-crawled after it._ _

__Toni knelt down and peeked under the bed. Another sneeze built up just looking at the dust bunnies and cat hair. "We've got to stop meeting this way," she told the cat. "We've got to stop meeting at all."_ _

____

~*~*~*~

"Damb it, furball, give it back!"

Gary did a double take when he stepped out of the bathroom. Brigatti lay half-under his bed, kicking against the floor and cussing out Cat. He took a few seconds to admire the sight--he didn't get to see her in jeans very often, and these fit her particularly well. But then she sneezed so hard her head hit the bottom of the bed with a _thunk_ , and Addie rolled out from under it, giggling up at him. 

Brigatti let out a string of curses that would have made Crumb proud before she came up for air, red-faced and clutching the platypus. Cat yowled and bounded over to the door. Gary picked Addie up; Brigatti couldn't sock him in the jaw if he was holding the baby. 

She could--and did--whap him on the arm with the stuffed animal. "You--that cabt--damb--" She sneezed, four times in a row. The sneezes rocked her body so violently he grabbed her arm to steady her. 

"Here." He handed her the package of Sudafed he'd brought from the bathroom. He'd had it on hand ever since the first time she'd been in his loft. Not that he'd bought it for _her_ , exactly. It just seemed like the polite thing to do for any guest who might have cat allergies. Not that he got a lot of those. Not that he got a lot of guests, period. But it was there for any of them. Not just her.

She tossed Fred at his head and stalked over to the kitchen for a glass of water, still sneezing. Addie looked up at Gary, then drooped against his chest, clutching Fred tight. He rubbed her back. "Long morning, huh, kid?"

"It's not getting any shorter." Brigatti drained her water and set the medicine on the counter. "By the time this takes effect, we'd better be gone." 

"You might want to bring the rest of that."

She narrowed her eyes. "You are not bringing that cat."

"No, but he tends to show up whether I want him to or not." At this point, Gary kind of hoped Cat would show up later, as long as the paper came along for the ride. 

Hands on hips, Brigatti looked from Gary to Cat and back. "If he knows what's good for him, he won't." But she tucked the medicine into the backpack on the couch.

"That's Marissa's." 

"Yeah. She's counting out cash for you--run down there and get it. You got ten minutes."

"Don't I need to pack?"

"Oh, now you get to pack? My go bag's back at the house, probably in cinders. This is all--" She sighed. "Fine, whatever you can fit in the backpack. But it counts against your ten minutes."

"Okay, uh...here." He gave Addie to Brigatti, stuffed a shirt--plaid, because it was the only one clean--and underwear, his Cubs hat, his toothbrush, and the aspirin in the backpack, then headed for the door.

"Take the cabt!"

Gary scooped up Cat and hurried down the stairs before she changed her mind. He stopped himself on the last step. "Marissa?" he whispered.

"It's safe," she said, her voice equally low. "The doors are locked, shades are down."

"Hey." He came around the corner and flipped on the light. She sat at her desk, fingering a pile of cash. "The paper didn't show up down here, did it?"

"I don't think so, but--" She shrugged.

"Right." He walked the office from one end to the other. With the exception of Marissa's desk, the room was the same disaster he'd left just a few hours ago. No sign of the _Sun-Times_ anywhere. He held Cat up so they were nose to nose. "Don't suppose you want to tell me where it went, huh?" Cat meowed and wiggled himself out of Gary's arms, jumping onto the desk and nuzzling Marissa's hand. Gary looked at the clock. He had about five minutes left. He dropped into his chair. 

Marissa stroked Cat's head. "So how'd you lose the paper?"

"I don't know." He rifled through the piles on his desk, just in case. "Fell out of my pocket, I guess, probably when I--" He stopped himself. "Things happened pretty fast."

"They must have, if you ended up with Toni and a baby and a limp, and you all need to get away from someone who sounds pretty dangerous." Her eyes went wide. "That wasn't a gas leak, was it?"

"I'll tell you what happened once it's over, I swear." Gary ran a hand through his hair. "I made sure we stopped here because I knew you'd be worried, and I didn't want to just disappear or lie to you. "

Despite the frown that etched deep furrows across her forehead, the corners of her lips turned up. "Kind of like the first time you met Brigatti?"

"Sort of." He hoped there wouldn't be as much shooting up of his bar this time--which was why, he thought with a longing look at the door out to it, he couldn't go out there, order up a sandwich, and shoot the bull with the bartenders and the regulars. He was just tired enough, just hungry enough, to be tempted by the thought. "It's a--a similar issue."

Marissa took that in with a slow nod, and then her smile deepened, became real, and he knew what she was going to say before she started. "Except now you have a baby to take care of together. Sounds kind of--"

"Don't."

"--fun?" she finished, all feigned innocence.

"That's one word for it." He wanted to put his head down; he'd been running on adrenaline for hours now, and there wasn't much left. But he had maybe three minutes before he had to face Brigatti and her overwound paranoia again. He lowered his voice even more. "Marissa, do you think I'm doing the right thing?" Even though Rachel had asked him to do it, protecting a baby was a huge responsibility, one he wasn't sure he was cut out for. "Addie's a cute kid, and she's in a tough spot, but I'm basically using her. She's an excuse to stick around Brigatti because I don't know if the story about her is still in the paper."

Marissa tilted her head, a sign she was about to drive home some sharp point or another. "You like her?"

"Well, yeah. I mean, she drives me nuts, and she waves that gun of hers around like she's a cheerleader and it's her pom-pom, but--"

"I meant Addison," Marissa said. "I already know you like Toni."

"Addie's--" She was funny, and for whatever reason she seemed to like him. "Yeah. I mean, as much as you can like anyone whose diapers you have to change."

"I think your reasons are noble enough. You've always said you want to have kids someday."

"Yeah, but not like this."

"Not with Toni?"

It was a long step from liking Brigatti to having kids with her, but Marissa knew that. "It's just so complicated with her." Gary shooed at Cat, who'd picked his way over to Gary's desk and was pawing at a stack of invoices. Cat ignored him, as if he knew Gary was sitting there blaming him for every missed date. "Things get in the way," he finished, glaring at Cat.

"Things like the paper? Sounds to me like it's out of the way now." Marissa shrugged. "Maybe this is the paper's way of making it up to you, though I don't think it would put a baby in danger so you could be with Toni."

"You call her Toni?"

"That is her name."

The real question was why hearing Marissa say it unsettled him. Gary scooped Cat off the desk and dropped him on the floor. "She told me not to call her that after she caught me with Amber-Jade."

"That was months ago."

"She hasn't taken it back yet." 

Marissa shook her head. "How old are you, exactly?"

That was the point, wasn't it? All this time nudging closer and closer to a precipice with someone he more than liked, who seemed to like him, and never daring to jump. Instead of moving forward like adults, they just kept retreating to the point where they'd begun. She was still Brigatti, and he was still Hobson, and everything between them kept piling up into an awkward wall instead of bridging the gap. 

Except for that moment this morning, when a meaty hand had brushed his shirt and nearly caught him, and she'd saved his life with a dead-eye shot. A shiver ran through him and he checked his watch, then pushed back from his desk and stood. "I should go."

Marissa stood, too, and handed him the money. "There was a little over two hundred in the register. I don't know how much we had in petty cash, since it wasn't separated, but I got all of it. And here--" She pulled the sweater off the back of her chair. "She needs this to cover her holster." Her frown returned with the last word. 

The gun had been pointed right at him. But Brigatti'd called him Gary, and in that split second he'd believed she'd keep them safe. "She knows what she's doing with the gun."

"I know. It's just--she needs a gun to protect that baby. And you."

"I'm not thrilled about it either." Gary hooked the sweater over his arm, then rifled through the bills. A scattered few had crease marks: horizontals on the fives, verticals on the tens, crosses through the twenties. The system Marissa used to keep track of her money. "Some of this is yours. I can't take it."

"Babies need more supplies than you think. I want to help." 

"You've already done plenty. If you hadn't called Armstrong, I don't think we would have made it out of there." He stuffed the bills in his pocket. "Listen, I don't want you going home or anywhere alone, okay? Not until I get back. Get someone to drive you. Call Crumb if he's in town, or ask Tony or Sarah for a ride." Brigatti's paranoia was rubbing off on him, but better safe than...better safe. 

"I will. And Gary, remember--" From the look on Marissa's face, he was pretty sure there were at least a dozen things she wanted to tell him. The one she chose surprised him. "Toni isn't Erica. She can handle the paper, if you need to tell her."

Oh, yeah, that would go over well. "Maybe."

"The two of you aren't so different. You both spend all your time protecting people. She'll understand the paper."

"If you say so."

"Gary--" Marissa stopped at the sound of footsteps through the loft. "She's going for the fire escape."

"Crap. I have to go." 

She nodded. "Promise you'll be careful?"

He caught her around the shoulders in a half-hug. "As long as you promise not to worry." Her resigned laugh followed him up the stairs, which he took two at a time. 

Back in the loft, Brigatti stood beside the window to the fire escape. She'd pulled her hair into a ponytail that stuck out the back of one of his old Hickory High baseball caps. She had the backpack over her shoulder and Addie in her arms--or at least, he assumed it was Addie under the baby quilt. 

"You leaving without me?" He hoped his voice didn't betray how relieved he was she hadn't done just that, but she was so ticked off she probably wouldn't have noticed anyway.

"Your ten minutes were up five minutes ago. I told you, Hobson, you have to--"

"--follow orders. Yes ma'am." He knew how much she hated "ma'am". He reached behind her, unzipped the backpack, and stuffed the cash inside, ignoring her quizzical, slightly disgusted look. "But how'll you point your gun at people if you're carrying the baby?" He held up Marissa's sweater. "Trade?"

A few minutes later, they joined the flow of pedestrians through River North. Tourists and the lunch crowd meant they weren't alone, and with the baby, the overstuffed backpack, and his still-throbbing ankle, he had to work to keep up with Brigatti. Despite his attempts to keep Addie's head of curls covered, she wiggled out from under the blanket, burbling incoherently at everything going on around them. 

Brigatti led him on a zigzag pattern south and east, toward the river. "Remember," she muttered under her breath as they waited for a light on Wells, "We're a happy couple out walking with our daughter." She pointed at the L rattling by overhead, craning her neck like--well, like anyone fresh from Hickory would. "Taking in the sights."

Brigatti and Armstrong had talked about hotels, but she'd passed one after another without stopping. "You plan to tell me where we're headed?" Gary asked. The light changed, and he followed her into the crosswalk.

"We're going to pick up a car. The rest is need to know," she whispered between her teeth.

A car could mean a lot of distance between Gary and the city he was supposed to look after. "I do need to know." She hopped the curb and strode down Kinzie so fast he had to nearly jog to keep up. "I'm protecting Addie, too."

"Then do it and stop distracting me."

"But I--" How could he protect anyone if he didn't know what was going to happen?

"But you what?"

He grabbed at the first thing that sprang to mind. "I'll have to let Marissa know how to reach me, or at least when I'll be back." She could check for the paper. "She needs my help at the bar."

"No." Brigatti whirled on him, trapping him in the doorway of a deli. Normally he wouldn't have minded being that close, but with the backpack behind him and Addie in front, he felt squished as the lettuce on the bottom of a sandwich. Brigatti stuck a finger in his face; Addie grabbed it with a chortle. "You don't get to use Marissa or the bar as leverage. She's better at running the place than you are."

"How would you know that?"

"Because I've watched her do it enough times while we both waited for you to show up. Usually it's her waiting for your signature on some invoice and me waiting for you to--" She broke her steely gaze, fidgeting with Addie's blanket while she muttered, "--keep your appointments."

Here, at least, he could fight back. He wasn't the only one who'd skipped out on appointments, or whatever they were calling their almost-dates these days. "Like I waited in that coffee shop last week?"

At least she had the grace to blink and deflate a little. "That was one time. Once."

"And at the Goodman the week before that?"

"Okay, twice, and both times, it was because I was on a case. _This_ case," she added, flipping the blanket back over Addie's head. "If you'd get a cell phone like the rest of the civilized world, I could have let you know I wouldn't make it." She beamed a fake smile at him as they stepped aside to let a group of guys in business suits get to the door. "I'd rather have pizza, honey," she said loudly, and started up the street. Gary hurried after her, still struggling to keep Addie under wraps. "My point still stands. You don't have to worry about the bar or Marissa. She'd kick your butt if she knew you'd tried to use her to get information from me."

If Brigatti knew Marissa well enough to say that--hell, if Marissa knew Brigatti well enough to call her Toni--maybe Brigatti was right about how much time they'd spent waiting around McGinty's together. 

God help him if the two of them ever ganged up on him.

~*~*~*~


	3. Chapter 3

Though she hated pounding the pavement in heels any higher than an inch, Toni wished for them now. Anything to make a noise, anything to focus on besides the thud of Hobson's footsteps right behind her, though they beat out a rhythm she used to time her checks of the crowd--left, right, behind, and straight ahead. As far as she could tell, no one was following them. The people on the streets with them were busy with their own lives: chatting on phones, hailing taxis, gawking at skyscrapers. Like she was supposed to be doing, instead of being distracted by Hobson at her heels, and his utter failure to keep Addie's curls hidden. 

At least he didn't try to walk just ahead, like Winslow did at his most obnoxious, or right next to her. She didn't think she could keep it together if she had to crowd along a Chicago sidewalk with Hobson's arms brushing against hers. Why'd he have to roll up his sleeves? And then the way he wrapped those arms around Addie--she swallowed hard. What was it about a guy with a baby--this guy with this baby? It set something in her humming, something that had no business humming at a time like this. It didn't have any business _thinking_ about humming.

Pull it together, she told herself. He'd do his job, she'd do hers. She managed half a block before he opened his mouth again, when they stopped at the last light before the bridge on LaSalle. He leaned close to her ear. "Won't they find out about a rental car if it's in Armstrong's name?"

She looked straight ahead, counting the seconds until the light changed. "They will if you keep shouting his name, sweetheart," she growled out the side of her mouth. 

"I'm not shouting, honey." He kept right on yapping when the light changed and the flow of pedestrians carried them forward. "Stop treating me like I'm just another witness you have to protect, will ya?"

"If you're not, then act like it," she shot over her shoulder, adding a gratuitous, "darling," and a smile that surely looked as artificial as it felt. She waited until a pack of teenage girls went around them--two of them turned and walked backward to cast flirty smiles at Hobson--then lowered her voice even more, drawing him close as they stepped onto the bridge, where the sidewalk shook right along with the traffic and made it safer to tell him, "If we get separated, get on the Orange Line, take it to Midway, and get a hotel room."

"Which hotel?"

"Doesn't matter." It didn't matter because it wasn't going to happen. "Just find a place to lie low."

"How will you find us?" His voice was rookie-rough. 

She'd blown it again; instead of calming him down by making him feel as if he was in the loop, she'd scared him. She forced a wry smile into her voice. "I'll knock on doors until I start sneezing. Just take care of her, okay?"

"Okay, I--" He gulped--literally, she could hear it--and when she looked back, he'd adjusted his hold on Addie, both arms wrapped tight around her, his hand cradling her head. "I can do that."

He was right. He wasn't just another witness she had to protect. They'd come a long way since then, not that she understood him any better now.

And they were both in way over their heads on this one. 

The wind picked up, tugging at the brim of her hat and clearing her head. She'd chosen the bridge for a reason. She stopped midway across--Hobson stumbled into her, but recovered--and pulled out her phone. Her department-issued cell phone, traceable through triangulation and, for all she knew, one of those fancy new satellite tracking chips. "Let's call my sister!" she said, throwing her voice toward the tour boats down on the river. "She'll be so jealous."

"You have a--uh, sure, sounds good." 

Maybe he was learning. Toni punched a few random buttons. "Hi, Kara! You'll never believe where I'm calling you from...no, we're right in the middle of _Chicago_! I'm standing over the _river_! Can you hear the boats? Listen!" She held the phone out over the railing, waiting for the next gust of wind, then opened her hand a little too wide, giving the phone a toss. She put on a pout and turned to Hobson as she heard the splash. "Oh, no!" Addie let out a squeal and popped out from under the blanket. Toni might have fooled the other pedestrians, but not the eight-month-old.

Hobson stared at Toni. "What did you--what--" 

Addie leaned back, and Hobson cut himself off to cup the back of her neck, but Addie squealed again and flung her arms wide, sending Fred spiraling into midair.

Toni lunged without thinking, catching the tip of Fred's tail between her outstretched fingers as her feet left the walkway. The rail caught her in the gut, and the water swung into view, churning brown and green and full of God knew what. Her feet scrabbled at the air. She couldn't get a grip on the railing, and she had half a second to realize that whatever God did or didn't know about the contents of the Chicago River, she was about to get a mouthful of it. 

"No!" Hobson grabbed her shirt from behind. He yanked her back onto the sidewalk, one hand curling tight around her arm. "What the hell are you _doing_?"

Green. Her breath came in short, aching gasps. His eyes were definitely green, a much brighter green than the river, but his pupils were so dilated she almost couldn't tell. His face had gone stark white, framed with his own hair and Addie's. He gave her arm--the one attached to the hand clutching Fred--a little shake. "It's just a _toy_. It's not worth getting yourself killed."

Surely he didn't think she would have fallen in--but after the morning they'd had, maybe he did. "What, you thought I was trying to ditch you?" She tried to grin, but it didn't take, and her words came out with a sharper edge than she intended. "You afraid you'd be left alone with the kid?"

"I'm afraid for _you_ , Briga--"

She shot up on tiptoe and shut him up with a completely gratuitous, entirely fake, purely for the public kiss--a peck that meant nothing--and took the opportunity to snarl in his ear, "Don't you dare say my name out loud."

But instead of backing off, he wrapped his free arm around her, squeezing Addie between them. "Okay," he choked out. "Okay." He hung onto her like he had on the roof of the Hilton, like he really thought she was going off that bridge, like--like she mattered. She let the hug go on--what wife wouldn't?--while Addie giggled and yanked on her hair.

It couldn't have been more than a few seconds. A man with a briefcase pushed past them, jostling her to her senses. She stepped back, and Hobson let her. There were tourists with cameras coming up the bridge, but they were too busy snapping pictures of the skyline to notice the three of them: Addie shouting "Badababa!" and leaning out of Hobson's arms to reach for Fred; Toni readjusting her ball cap, catching her breath, and trying to decide which event of the past minute or so had actually taken it away; and Hobson, staring at her as if he could hold her with his eyes, as if something between them had shifted and there were suddenly a hundred things he wanted to say.

Not here, not now. "I told you, Fred's important." She handed him over to Addie, who bobbed forward, and tried to cram his head in her mouth. "She won't sleep without him." Toni spun on her heel and marched toward Wacker. She'd gone at least six steps before she heard--felt--Hobson follow, but she didn't look back. She didn't want him to see her face, or read something in her eyes that most certainly was not there.

She'd only kissed him to keep him quiet. It wasn't as if she was expecting more; it'd been eight months since the last time they'd kissed.

Not that she was keeping track.

He caught up with her as she veered right onto Wacker. There were more people here, and a lot more traffic. The city felt bright today, all edges and sunlight glinting off concrete and cars. Her sunglasses were back at the safe house, along with her case files, clothes, and wallet. It would be a bitch convincing the rental agency to give her the car; she'd probably have to flash her badge and make up some story about her connection to Meredith Armstrong. Usually the badge solved problems, but right now she wasn't sure it was the best idea. Unfortunately, it was her only idea.

Across Wacker, four blocks into the Loop, and Hobson didn't say anything. He limped along behind her, but she could feel him watching her, wondering what all that had been about, waiting for her to respond or--

_"Or what?"_ The words echoed from a cold November evening. She still saw his damn ghost some nights when she came home. If she'd known exactly what their relationship _was_ , she might have been able to answer that question, manhunt or no manhunt. And when she came right down to it, not a whole lot had changed between them since then. She wasn't sure if he liked the ambiguity, if he didn't want anything more, or if he was afraid--as she was--that pushing whatever they had too far would destroy it.

So it made perfect sense for them to spend the next week or so playing house. 

She made herself stop, spun out of the bubble of Hobson-related thoughts to face the man himself. Addie drooped on his shoulder. Hobson just looked confused. "How's your ankle?"

"It's been better. But I can make it." Hobson shifted Addie, who gave Toni a drooly smile around Fred's bill. 

"Hey, baby bug." Toni allowed herself a few quick seconds to ruffle Addie's curls before she started walking again, this time at a slower pace that let Hobson stay just behind her, almost side-by-side. Just so she could keep an eye on Addie. "Thanks for carrying her. She's heavier than she looks. Sorry about--you know, back at your place. When I kicked you," she added at his baffled look.

"I don't mind. About carrying her, I mean." He flashed a wan smile. "The kick, well--we can call that payback. For not following orders. You sure you're okay?"

"Who, me? Fine." She wouldn't have fallen, not over something as simple as Fred, not when she was on duty. She was about to tell Hobson as much when Addie pulled Fred out of her mouth, frowned at him, and burst into tears. 

"What'd I do?" Hobson stopped and looked, stricken, from Addie to Toni and back.

"It's not you. She's hungry and exhausted--didn't get more than a few minutes sleep this morning, what with all the--"

"Explosions and running?"

"I was going to say cat wrangling, but yeah, those too." She pointed to a deli across the street. The line out the door was a couple people deep, but there were plenty of outside tables empty. "I think you should stop here and feed Addie--and yourself, if you want. I'll go pick up the car."

His head wagged. "No, no, you can't do that."

"We can't go together." Toni tried to keep her voice under Addie's cries, which would only get louder until she was fed. "Whoever's at the counter might remember me, and if I'm with the two of you, they definitely will. Here, you're surrounded by office workers and--whatever that guy is," she said a little more loudly, for the benefit of the kid with a sloppy beard and a messenger bag who glared at them as he walked past, as if a baby crying on a city sidewalk was spoiling his grungepunk afternoon.

"That's a good thing?" Hobson asked. He patted Addie's back; she dropped her head to his shoulder and wailed.

"It's the protection of the crowd. No way our friends'll make a move when all these people might see them." She waved at the deli, surprised when her own stomach growled. "Take a load off for a few minutes, give her some applesauce. But don't pick a table right on the street, okay?" When he looked about to argue again she added, "That's an order."

"You'll come back?" 

"Should take half an hour, tops. If an hour goes by?"

"Yeah, yeah, yeah." He scanned the ground, like he expected a threat to pop up out of the sidewalk. "Orange Line. Hotel. Stick some cat hair on the door."

She rested a hand on Addie's heaving back. "Take care of her." 

Hobson waited until she met his eyes, then gave her a wry smile. "Like I have a choice?"

Neither one of them did at this point; Addie was about to cross some baby boundary into absolute "No One Will Ever Feed Me Again" panic. "Go." Toni pointed to the crosswalk, where the light had just turned green. "I swear I'll be back for you."

"I'll hold you to that."

The sooner she took off, the sooner she could keep that promise, but she stayed to watch Hobson join the line into the deli. A trio of women in scrubs were on him in an instant, no doubt giving more advice than he'd ever need. She brushed aside the twinge of annoyance; the women were a great cover, or at least a deterrent to anyone who'd think to make a move on Hobson. When Hobson looked back at her, she waved and took off at a half-jog for Union Station.

~*~*~*~

"You sit right here, honey." The woman in purple scrubs--Heather or Jenny or Kim, Gary wasn't sure which because Addie had been yelling in his ear when the trio had introduced themselves--pulled out a chair at a bistro table in the back corner of the sidewalk patio. "Kim'll get your sandwiches, but this girlie needs her lunch." She reached over and ruffled Addie's curls. "Don't you, sweetie pie?"

"Thank you." Gary managed to shrug off the backpack and catch it as it slid down his arm, keeping a tight grip on Addie the whole time. He wasn't used to women pulling out chairs for him, but even in the midst of a meltdown, Addie was like some kind of magnet. The minute he'd stepped in the ordering line, the women had turned around. He'd launched into an apology, stammering about how his wife had gone to get the car and he was picking up lunch. They'd told him not to worry, they were nurses, and sprung into action as if helping a guy with a baby was their mission in life. They'd fussed over Addie, taken his lunch order, and sent him to the tables. Distracted by the attention, Addie had stopped crying for the moment, but now her face scrunched up as she chewed on Fred's bill. 

"It's okay, there's food in here, hold on," he muttered, digging one-handed through the backpack.

Heather-or-Jenny put a hand on the backpack's flap. "Let me help."

"No!" Gary yanked the backpack out of her reach. He was ninety-nine percent sure the nurses weren't connected to the mob, but he was also sure Brigatti would have his head if he let anyone see the wad of cash and her sooty shirt among the diapers and sleepers. "I mean, I got it. Here we go." He drew out the jar of applesauce and a spoon. Addie lunged for the stuff in his hand, dropping Fred on the ground.

"Oopsie! Silly girl." Heather-or-Jenny reached under Gary's chair while he lifted his feet; Addie got hold of the spoon and waved it around, occasionally hitting the table, while Gary opened the jar. "A platypus, huh?" Heather-or-Jenny brushed dirt Gary couldn't see off Fred's fur. "You don't sound Australian."

"No, my wife--uh, my wife's grandfather is." That was such a whopper Gary couldn't even look her in the eye as he said it; Brigatti was a lot of things, but he was sure Australian wasn't one of them. He tried to tease the spoon out of Addie's grip. "Now how'm I supposed to feed you if you won't give me that?" 

Heather-or-Jenny tickled Addie's cheek with Fred's fuzzy head. Addie giggled and released her grip on the spoon. "They don't have much of an attention span at this age." Heather-or-Jenny gave Gary a conspiratorial grin and plopped Fred on the table. "But you already knew that, right, Dad?" 

The word shot through him like an arrow; Gary swallowed, hoping it didn't show. "Right." He scooped up some applesauce and moved it toward Addie's mouth. She bobbed forward, nose-diving into the spoon, and came up grinning and smacking her lips. "Let's try that one again, huh?" This time he only filled the spoon halfway, and he managed to slip it into Addie's open mouth without getting any on her nose. Addie reached up to grab the spoon handle, as if to make sure it stayed parked in the right spot while she sucked at the applesauce.

Gary took a look around the patio: a couple held hands over a salad; a woman in a black suit chatted on a cell phone; the man at the table next to his read the _Tribune_. Looked safe enough, at least for now.

Heather-or-Jenny pulled a handful of napkins from the holder on the table and set them next to the jar. "I have a feeling you'll need those."

"Yeah, I guess we're both still learning," Gary said, just as Addie spat the spoon out, along with a good bit of applesauce. Was he supposed to wipe it up as he went, or wait until she was done? Addie leaned forward and got one hand on the jar of applesauce, so he decided to wait for the cleanup. "Hold on there, I got it."

"You're doing great. Smart to get regular applesauce. They charge quadruple for the same stuff in baby food jars. What's her name?"

Recalling the look Brigatti had given him when he'd told Marissa Addie's name, he picked the first thing that came to mind. "Zeke. It's a nickname," he added at her baffled look, and wished Chuck were there. He was always better at covering in situations like this. "Short for--uh, Zekalynn. After my grandmother."

No way would anyone buy that--but Heather-or-Jenny's grin never faltered. "Cute." 

A bag with the deli's logo landed on the table. Gary looked up at the blonde nurse in flowered scrubs--Kim, he assumed. "Thanks." He put the spoon down to reach for his wallet, and by the time he'd extracted enough cash to pay for lunch, Addie was happily banging the spoon on the table, sending applesauce flying and Heather-or-Jenny to her feet, chuckling as she brushed at her scrubs. "Oh, sorry."

"It's good to see her smile," said the other nurse--Jenny-or-Heather. She had pink scrubs and a dark ponytail like Brigatti's. She set down a large coffee within Gary's reach, but not Addie's. "You look like you could use this."

"I lived on coffee when my Jacinda was that age," said Kim. 

He'd had nothing but coffee all day, but the smell made him realize how much he needed another jolt. The thought of Brigatti's ponytail made him wonder why she wasn't back yet. "I can definitely use it," he said to the nurses while he scanned the street for any sign of her. Not that he knew what she'd be driving.

"She'll be back--this sweetie's too cute to leave for long, aren't you, Zeke?" Heather-or-Jenny tickled Addie's foot, then took a bag from Kim. 

Kim's eyebrows climbed up under her bangs. "Zeke?"

"Like you haven't heard weirder up there in the nursery?" Heather-or-Jenny winked at Gary. "Come on, ladies, we'd better get back to the hospital."

"Yeah, uh--" Gary's would have stood, but with Addie on his lap and his foot hooked through the backpack strap, it wasn't going to happen. "Like I said, thanks, I really appreciate it."

They all smiled and waved at Addie; to Gary's surprise, she waved back at them--or rather, she waved the spoon at them. Applesauce landed on his nose. He waited until the nurses were gone down the block, then reached for the coffee and took a long swig. "Oh, that's good--no, no, hold on." Addie had pulled the applesauce half off the table; he caught it before it could fall. "Want more?" 

She seemed happy to suck applesauce off the spoon, so he kept feeding her, hoping she'd let him know when she was done. "Nice ladies," he said after he'd downed more coffee. "We better not tell Auntie Toni how long we spent talking to strangers, though, huh?"

The man at the next table looked up from his newspaper, but instead of the suspicious scowl Gary usually got from strangers who caught him talking to Cat, the guy waggled his fingers at Addie and grinned. She might be the sloppiest eater he'd ever seen, and a wiggly armful to boot, but at least Gary could talk to her without everyone thinking he was nuts. 

Addie looked up at him, blinking. "How'd you get applesauce on your eyelashes?" He tried to wipe it off with a napkin, but she turned away from him, smearing the applesauce in her hair. "Okay, I think we're done here." He put the applesauce and spoon in the backpack and stood Addie on his lap, holding her under the arms and peeking out from behind her to check on the line into the deli, the other diners at the patio, and the traffic passing by. 

"I guess I can see why she's so paranoid," he told Addie. Even though the guy in the house that morning couldn't have been anything _but_ a mob goon, Gary was pretty sure there were others who didn't look the part, and he had no idea how to spot them. 

"Ga-ba!" Addie declared. She was still in a drumming mood; she slapped her hands against his arms. 

"You think this will work out?" Gary asked her. 

"Laaaloo!"

Maybe it would. Brigatti had kissed him, after all. He would have preferred it to go on a little longer than it had, but at the time, he'd been damned glad she was there to kiss him instead of splashing into the river. 

"Which brings up another question, since you're giving out advice," he told Addie. "What happens when the paper shows up?" She put her hands on his face, smearing applesauce on his cheeks. "What am I supposed to tell her? 'Hey, by the way, I get the newspaper a day early, and no, I don't know where it comes from, or why it comes to me--well, except the guy who used to get it saved my life when I was twelve, but I have no idea why _he_ got it, and so I wait for the cat every morning to tell me what to do.'" He sighed, and Addie got a sticky hold on his ear. "She'll love that. Probably kick me to the curb, and then who'll feed you applesauce, huh?"

Addie pulled back from him, stared seriously into his eyes, and then, to his horror, she burst into tears. "What'd I say? What's wrong?" He grabbed the stuffed animal from the table and waved it in front of her face. "Here's Fred; don't cry." She grabbed Fred and dropped onto Gary's shoulder, giving out a few more whiny sobs as she rubbed her face back and forth on his shirt. Gary patted her back, unsure what else he could do. It must have been the right thing; within seconds her breaths came deep and even against his chest.

"Finally did something right," Gary whispered, though he had no idea what had made her fall asleep. Probably sheer exhaustion. He pulled Addie's quilt up around her and reached for the coffee, which brought his watch into view. 

Brigatti had taken off over thirty minutes ago--thirty-two, to be exact. It should have been too early to worry, but it wasn't as if he had ever really stopped, and he wasn't going to, not until he knew for sure she'd live to see another day. 

And Addie, too. Even sound asleep, her little hand clenched and unclenched Fred's fur. Gary couldn't imagine a guy who'd blow up a house to kill Brigatti and Rachel--or the people who'd ordered him to do it--would take very good care of a baby, whether or not they meant to actually hurt her. He stroked the back of her hand, and just as he was about to pull his finger away, she caught it in a grip so tight it stopped his heart.

A loud "Meow!" started it up again. Cat jumped up onto the chair next to his. Addie sighed and wiggled, but she didn't wake up. 

"What are you doing here?" Gary looked under the table, but there was no sign of the paper. "What do you want?"

Three quick, neat honks interrupted him. A silver Honda sat at the curb, hazards flashing. Shaking his head at the thought that he knew Brigatti by the way she honked a car horn, Gary grabbed the backpack and the sandwiches. Too bad he didn't have a third hand for the coffee, but it was mostly gone. 

Cat was another issue. "You'd better get out of here," Gary told him. "You know she's allergic." But he followed Gary to the curb, then sat yowling while Gary opened the back door of the car. 

"You know how to buckle her in?" Brigatti said.

"Think I've got it. She's asleep," he added unnecessarily; Addie slid bonelessly out of his arms and into the seat. Her breathing stayed rhythmic and even while he slipped her arms through the harness and snapped the buckles into place. Behind him, Cat nuzzled at his leg, then slipped his paw under the hem of his jeans. "She ate--" A cutting pain sliced up his calf. "Ow! Cat, what the hell?" He tried to grab Cat by the scruff of his neck, but Cat ducked a few feet away, still meowing. 

"Hob- _honey_!" Gary turned to find Brigatti glaring at him from the front seat. "We have to go."

"Yeah," Gary said, but he hesitated. He was pretty sure Cat was trying to tell him something, and that it wasn't good. He took one step toward Cat, and Cat ran a few steps up the sidewalk, then stopped and looked back.

Was the paper up there? Was he supposed to follow Cat to stop some other crisis? 

"Come _on_ ," Brigatti insisted. One look at her, pissed off and gorgeous even in his old ball cap, and Gary made his choice. 

"You're on your own, buddy," he told Cat, who gave one last, loud yowl and took off toward the river. Gary fought a wave of guilt as he started to close the door.

"I want you back there," Brigatti said. 

The car seat was strapped to the middle of the back bench; it took up parts of both window seats. "There's not enough leg room for a schnauzer! Maybe I should drive. Wouldn't that look--"

"You don't want to finish that, Hobson."

"I just mean it's kind of a small car."

Brigatti dropped her voice to a sharp whisper. "Which one of us has passed every defensive and offensive driving course the feds and Chicago law enforcement have to offer? Do you know how to shake a tail? How to keep going when someone's trying to run you off the road? Or shoot you? Or run you off the road _and_ shoot you?" She jabbed a finger at the back seat. "Get in."

"I'd have to fold myself in half to fit back there." 

"Hope you've been practicing your origami. Get the hell in."

He tossed the backpack and the sandwiches over to the other side of the seat. "Would you watch your mouth around the kid?"

"You've met her mother, right?" Brigatti pulled away from the curb the moment he closed the door. 

Gary's knees came almost to his chin; no way was he getting his seatbelt buckled, but he was wedged so tightly between the car seat and the door he figured it would've been redundant. He tried to look back and spot Cat, but he could barely turn his head, which brushed against the roof of the car.

"Look, Hobson, I know it's not comfortable." Brigatti said a few blocks later. She made a sharp right turn, then spared him a glance. "But I want you back there with her. If they hit us when we're both up here, they could grab her before we get out of the airbags."

He looked from her hands, white-knuckled as she steered around another corner, to Addie's, limp against her blanket and Fred. He brushed his thumb over one of them and she grabbed it. 

"It's okay," he told Brigatti. "We'll be fine." 

"You sure about that?"

How could he be sure, when he didn't have the paper? He had no clue if Cat had meant to distract him or to warn him before he'd taken off toward home. "Yeah," he whispered. There was a lot of real estate in the direction Cat had gone. It could mean anything, or absolutely nothing. Addie squeezed his finger tight. This, right here, was where he needed to be.

"Good," Brigatti said. She met his eyes in the rearview mirror for half a second, then looked past him before directing her gaze forward. "Because we may have picked up a tail."

~*~*~*~

"Keep down." Toni made another quick turn; two cars back, the red Taurus that had been behind them since Washington Street did the same. She ground her molars against a fast-blossoming headache. "I mean it, Hobson. I'll shake them on the expressway, but your big head is a perfect target."

He bent over Addie. The curve of his back still showed in the rearview, but it was better than letting someone see his face. His answer was so muffled she didn't get a word of it. 

The driver of the Taurus wore sunglasses and a ball cap; she was pretty sure it was a man, but shadows made it hard to tell. It could be nothing. Lots of cars in the Loop headed for the Eisenhower, the main feeder out to the suburbs. She pulled onto the expressway and merged the way she'd learned was the only way to do it in Chicago: pushed her way into the flow of traffic and over to the far left lane, trusting anyone in her way would get out of it. She adjusted her speed so she had enough room to switch lanes again quickly if she had to, then checked the rearview. The Taurus hovered one row over and two cars back. 

"He's still with us," she muttered, trying to work out how he--and whoever he worked for--had found her so quickly. "What the hell did you do?"

"I didn't do anything!" _That_ came through loud and clear. "Maybe it's that leak on your end."

"Too soon." She couldn't see how anything they'd done would have triggered a tail from Guyette's people. Maybe that was the problem--all the stuff she hadn't seen. Or heard. Or known. "Write down the plate number for me: zulu, bravo, tango, six, three, four."

"What am I supposed to write it on?"

"You carry that newspaper of yours everywhere."

"Yeah, well, I lost it in the fire."

Of all the things to sound bitter about, that was kind of a weird choice--but this was Hobson. He was weird about weird things. "That a problem for you?"

There was a moment of hesitation--again, weird--before he said, "I'll just remember the plate."

"Hold on." She cut back across three lanes and took the next exit, gunned it through a yellow light, took the bridge over the expressway and then the ramp back onto it, headed east this time. By the time she was back up to cruising speed, the only red behind her was a minivan. She eased her grip on the steering wheel so blood could flow back into her fingertips. "Lost him, for now at least. You can sit up."

Hobson grunted. "Actually, I can't."

"Oh, come on." Lane by lane, checking constantly for red Tauruses--or any other car that might be mimicking her moves--she made her way back toward the right. "It isn't that cramped back there."

"No, it's Addie. She--" He grunted again, and his face popped up in the rearview mirror. "She had my hair." He ran a hand over his head, leaving random clumps of hair sticking up. "Kid's got a grip, and it's full of applesauce. Where are we going?"

"I'm not sure." Toni took the Ashland exit. "I'm thinking north. We need a hotel away from the city, one where we can pay cash. Somewhere a family won't be out of place."

He leaned forward, one arm on top of the passenger seat. Toni got a strong whiff of residual smoke, coffee, and...Hobson. "Oak Park?"

"Too close. Too obvious." It was right off the Eisenhower, and an easy L ride out of the city. 

He was quiet for a while; they passed a school and a park, boarded-up brick buildings and railroad tracks, but Toni knew he wasn't watching their surroundings. She could feel his gaze on the side of her head. Kind of like an icepick to the ear. 

Okay, not as bad as that--the icepick feeling was more from the explosion and the running from the mob than from Hobson--but there was a familiar charge in the air, the faint tingle of mystery that meant he was factoring whatever he was about to say against his big secret. What that had to do with finding a safe place was beyond her.

"Schaumburg." He sat back, knees punching against the passenger seat.

"Schaumburg?" She'd heard of it, but she'd never been there. Never seen much point.

"People from small towns around here, the ones who're too intimidated to drive in the city, they go there for the mall and the Ikea and tell their friends back home they went to Chicago. And there's that place where everybody dresses up like they're from the middle ages. You eat turkey legs and watch a bunch of actors joust." At least he had the grace to sound embarrassed about knowing that last part.

"We are not dressing up as Lord and Lady OntheLam and eating turkey legs." She wasn't that desperate. Yet. "How do you even know about that place?"

"Chuck tried to throw me a birthday party there once."

"Tried?"

"It--uh--there was a whole thing with a runaway horse and--it didn't work out."

Toni had the sneaking suspicion it had worked out for somebody. Probably somebody in the path of the horse, if she knew Hobson. "Yeah, well, it wouldn't be the first time one of Fishman's parties turned into a disaster, would it?"

"I don't know, Brigatti. I mean, the wedding itself, yeah." He met her eyes in the rearview mirror and rubbed his jaw. "But the reception, that wasn't all bad."

She couldn't help grinning at the memory of a very drunk Chuck Fishman trying to break-dance in his tux. Hobson had waited for a slow song, but he'd asked her to dance despite the bruise on his jaw and the duct tape residue on her face. "Guess not. Amber's money bought a lot of fish eggs and booze." That actually got a laugh--okay, more like a chuckle--out of him. Maybe there was still hope for them. 

There wasn't a lot of hope for her, if she let herself get distracted by Hobson when she was on duty. She spent the next minute or so watching the cars behind her as she turned off Ashland and stair-stepped her way northwest. Nobody stayed with them for more than a block or two. "So, Schaumburg, huh?"

"There are plenty of factories and offices up there, if we want to pretend I'm there for business and you're there to shop. Or the other way around," he added quickly. 

It could actually work, at least for the night or two it would take to set up something better. "Schaumburg it is," she said. "As long as Addie's happy back there, I'm taking a scenic route. Make sure we're hard to follow. You might as well relax."

"She's asleep." He shifted around, knees knocking on the passenger seat again. A paper bag rattled. "But this is as relaxed as I can get back here. You hungry?"

"A little." Understatement of the year. Toni hadn't had time to think about food all day, but her stomach growled and her mouth watered the moment she caught a whiff of bread, meat, and onions. 

A sandwich appeared at her shoulder, half unwrapped. "Roast beef and provolone with mustard. Extra onions and peppers."

"You remembered?" He _knew_? The only time she'd had her favorite sandwich around him was the night she'd spent an hour and a half chatting with Marissa while they waited for Hobson to show. Forty minutes after their reservations at Carmine's expired, she'd given up and ordered dinner off the McGinty's menu. By the time he'd shown up, apologetic, disheveled and smelling faintly of cabbage, she'd demolished most of the sandwich. She'd had a long, no-lunch day of her own. They'd ended up shooting the bull over a couple of beers in a corner booth. "You really know the way to a girl's heart."

He said something in response, but she couldn't make it out because his mouth was full of whatever he was eating. She didn't ask for clarification because frankly, so was hers; every swallow pushed her headache farther away. She turned on the radio. One of the benefits of living in Chicago: stations broadcasting local news all day long. 

Driving one-handed through increasingly unfamiliar neighborhoods made eating tricky, but her sandwich was nearly gone by the time the news cycled to the story about the exploding house. The rustling and shifting in the back seat stopped as a reporter described the efforts to put out the fire, locate residents, and find the source of the gas leak. 

"Gas leak, my butt." Toni wadded up her sandwich wrapper and tossed it to Hobson. 

"I guess it's better they say that than tell what really happened," Hobson said. "What makes it into the news isn't always the truth. Maybe this way the guys who did it will think they had the wrong house."

"Fat chance." But she knew what he meant about the news. Details could be withheld from the press. Hell, coroner's reports could be faked. In this case, though, it was a good thing no one else knew the truth about the explosion. She'd been yelled at by the president of the Shady Grove Neighborhood Association twice over the past few weeks for "letting her friends loiter in their cars like hooligans casing the joint." The woman would be in apoplexy if she found out the house fire was actually an extreme case of witness tampering by the mob. 

Of course, Toni was close to a bit of a breakdown herself at this point. The key was to keep moving, to keep ahead of her thoughts and on top of the situation. She checked the road again; so far, no tail she could see. She figured it was safe to jump onto the 1-90 tollway and head for suburbia. The early afternoon flow of traffic was light enough to allow weaving away from anyone who might follow them. 

In the backseat, Hobson was quiet. She thought he was listening to the baseball scores, but in the middle of a rundown of the Cubs' loss the night before, he asked, "What happened to her dad?"

When she glanced in the rearview, he was staring down at Addie, looking...a little dopey. Good. She could tell him to do just about anything in the name of keeping her safe, and he might actually do it.

"Brigatti?"

Maybe it'd be easier to tell him now, when she didn't have to look him in the eye. But it hadn't been her screw-up--if it had been a screw-up at all. She was still trying to work that out. Hobson would have to be happy with the bare facts. Some of them, anyway. "There was an accident. He was out running and a car hit him. The driver took off, but they eventually found him. He'd had four DUIs in the past two years."

"That doesn't make sense," he said, almost to himself.

A lot about that day hadn't made sense, and still didn't. But Hobson didn't know that. "Accidents happen all the time." 

"To witnesses in mob trials?"

"Technically, Dennis Guyette is on trial for campaign fraud."

"But you don't think it was some random hit-and-run."

"No." Like Rachel had said, there weren't any coincidences in all of this. And now that Toni had proof in the form of the burnt shell of her safe house, she at least could be on the lookout for future non-coincidences. Not that she was off the hook for missing today's. "It's not going to happen to you, if that's what you're worried about."

"You think I'm worried about me?"

She shrugged. "You'd have to be kind of stupid not to be, at this point." A yellow truck with a plumber's logo cut in right behind her, a little too close for comfort. Toni stepped on the gas. 

"Stupid or not, I'm not the one I'm worried about. Look, you don't think--I mean, they won't really show up at McGinty's, will they?"

Of course they would. "We have to hope our trail's too cold to follow by the time they get there." Just like she was hoping the guy riding her bumper was nothing more than an obnoxious sink jockey.

"I don't want anybody I know having any accidents, you know what I mean? We've had enough for one day."

"What happened to Mike was--" She gulped. It had been a warning, delivered before she was involved in the case and well out of her jurisdiction. "It's ancient history, okay? Right now I have to concentrate on getting us somewhere safe." She nodded at a green sign as they passed: _Schaumburg exits 12 miles_. "We need to develop our cover before we get to the hotel."

"Our cover?"

"Aliases, where we're from, why we're in Schaumburg, in case anyone asks."

"I know what a cover is. I meant--okay." 

The hollow thud of his hand flopping onto the armrest was the sound of utter resignation. The guy did deserve to know more about what was going on, and she knew from past experience that he was good--that they were good together--at puzzling out messes. She just couldn't do it here and now.

The yellow truck took the Elmhurst exit. Toni let out a controlled breath as that particular threat bit the dust. Didn't mean there wasn't another car out there about to follow her into Schaumburg. She cataloged the green Volvo, the red Cavalier, the purple Saturn, and the Harley. None of them seemed to be aping her moves, but they might not be showing their hand yet.

But how could Guyette's people, how could _anyone_ , know where they were? On the other hand, no one but her team was supposed to know where the safe house was, and look how well that had gone.

Hobson cleared his throat. "You're wearing my hat from high school, so I guess we're from Hickory."

She needed to take her own advice and focus on the problem at hand. "Indiana?" 

"It's not the worst place in the world to be from."

She took off the hat and threw it over her shoulder. "If anyone looks into your history, though, this would be an easy marker. And the car has Illinois plates. We could be from Bloomington, Decatur, Galena--"

"Not Galena." There had to be a story behind the quick, sure way he said it. "Decatur's good."

She nodded. "I'm thinking we don't go in the front door of the hotel together. It's better if no one from the desk or the lobby remembers the two of us with a baby. But if we are seen together, we're husband and wife. We need a last name." She shot him a grin in the mirror. "And if you say Smith or Jones, I'll eject you right out of this car."

"What about Snow?"

It was simple, easy to remember, not too common or too rare. Pretty good for a guy who called his cat Cat. "Is that a relative? Your mother's maiden name?"

"No."

"A friend? Someone you've dated?"

"Nope."

"It isn't your ex-wife's--"

"No! It's just easy to remember."

"Okay, fine, Mr. and Mrs. Snow. I'm Nia." 

"Nia?" He said it like he was trying to make it fit in his mouth. "Really?"

"It's what my brothers used to call me when I was little." Until they'd discovered she was as tough as they were, and bestowed her a boy's name like a badge of honor. "What about you? Make it something you'll remember and answer to. Usually we use a nickname, or something with our real initials."

"There really aren't any nicknames for Gary, except Gar, and Chuck uses that all the time. "

"You could be Garrett." She made a face as she said it. "Or not. How about Greg?"

"I look like a Greg to you?"

"Trust me, Hobson, you don't want to know what I think you look like." It slipped out before she could think how harsh it might sound, even though she had meant pretty much the opposite. Out of the corner of her eye, she caught his lean forward, his frown. "No offense."

"Greg's okay, I guess."

Toni slowed for the first Schaumburg exit, checking the traffic again. No cars followed her onto the ramp. She allowed herself five seconds at the red light to breathe deep and close her eyes. 

"What do we call the baby?" Hobson asked.

"She stays Addie. Too confusing for her otherwise." Addie was just beginning to respond to her real name; Rachel would never forgive them if they set her back. "We won't call her that in public. Use a generic nickname."

"'Sweetie? Honey?'" Sounded like he was making the same face she did when she said "Schaumburg" and "Indiana."

"I go with bug."

"Huh. Kinda works. What else?"

By the time they reached the ring of hotels and motels around Schaumburg's malls and big-box stores, they'd worked out professions--she was an accountant, he worked for Caterpillar--and that they'd been married six years. They were baseball fans hoping to catch the weekend series at Wrigley. 

Toni drove by a few likely choices until she spotted one that looked right: cheap, but with inside entrances to the rooms, lighted parking, and more than one floor. She parked at a strip mall across the street. "Hand me the backpack. Take a look around--you see anyone who looks like they're watching us?"

While Hobson scanned the lot, Toni peeled bills off their roll of cash. She put enough for a room in the front pocket of the pack and handed half of the rest to Hobson along with his Cubs hat. "In case we get separated. Which we won't," she said at his stricken look. "I'll get us a room at the hotel over there, make it look like I'm coming off a bus or something. You wait twenty minutes, then drive over. Park in the back, wait until you see me come to the nearest entrance, and I'll let you in. Keep Addie in the car seat."

"Okay. Coast looks clear." 

Even though he was on the other side of the car, she could hear his knees pop when he got out. She caught the limp and the tight set of his jaw as well. "Those aspirins wearing off?" 

He smashed the baseball cap onto his head. "I'm fine."

"Sure you are." 

He caught her arm as she slung the backpack over her shoulder. "B--Nia. Be careful, okay?"

"I'll look both ways when I cross the street." The longer they stood like that, the less careful they were being, but a flash of panic in his eyes--still green, but the flecks of brown were easier to see now--made her hesitate. "You sure you can do this? You can't flake out on me this time."

His grip on her arm tightened. "I don't flake."

"No puppies in sewer tunnels. No thirty-minute bathroom breaks. No emergency dentist appointments you suddenly remember when it's your turn to change her diaper."

His look turned searching; probably trying to decide if she was teasing him. But she was dead serious, no matter how warm his breath felt on her face, no matter how much she wanted to kiss him again. Purely for their cover, of course.

"I don't flake without good reason," he finally said, "so it isn't really flaking. But this time I won't. No matter what the reason."

She let one corner of her mouth curve up, a challenge. "And I know you won't because..."

"Because it's you, and--" His Adam's apple bobbed in his throat. "Because she's a baby."

"Good answer." She stepped back; he let go of her arm. "Get in the car."

Even though he obeyed without protest, she was sure he watched her all the way across the street. She wished for a wire or a walkie, so she could tell him to keep his attention on whoever else might be watching. His overprotectiveness wasn't wholly bad--she much preferred it to the dumbfounded way he'd let that jerk from Morenia chloroform her--but it could get them into just as much trouble as inaction if he didn't keep it in check.

She hurried across the street, wincing against sunlight flashing off the mica in the concrete. The sandwich had fended off the worst of her headache, but it was building up again, bouncing off bits of her day: the explosion; a mob flunky in her safe house; firing her weapon; Rachel's panic; the river swinging into the sky as Hobson pulled her off the rail; _"Because it's you."_

It all added up to something. She would _make_ it add up to something when she had time to look back, but if she stopped long enough to do that now, she'd crash. She was down to her last, shredded nerve, and she had to keep running on it until she'd done everything she could possibly do to make them all safe. 

It took a little convincing to get the desk clerk to take cash. Places that would were getting rarer every year, but it helped that she was female and alone as far as he could tell, and that she babbled about meeting up with friends in the city tomorrow but needing a cheaper place to crash for the night. Getting a second floor room wasn't as difficult, and by the time she got to asking for two double beds in case one of her friends got in early, the kid was putty in her hands.

A few minutes later, she waved Hobson to a parking spot at the other end of the lot, under a light where she'd be able to see the car from their room. Some nearly Rachelish language drifted across the lot as he tried to free the baby's seat from the back of the car. 

"Got some issues with that thing?" she asked as she let him in the building. 

"It's not so much the car seat, as the, uh, lovely new odor she's creating." 

"Yeah, well, it's your turn to change her." On the way upstairs, Addie let out a couple of wake-up whimpers. At least she'd slept through the drive. 

She opened the door to their room, but held up a hand. "Wait right here." A quick check of the closet, bathroom, and the tiny balcony assured her no one had snuck in. "Okay." She waved him in, pointing at the bed furthest from the door. If anyone busted into their room, she wanted to be the first thing they found. "That's yours." 

He put the baby carrier on the flimsy desk next to the television and set to work on the buckles. Addie was just waking up, blinking and looking at them as if she was trying to decide whether to yell at them for not being her mom. "No crib?" Hobson asked. 

"Right--I checked in alone and I'm going to ask for a crib. She'll sleep okay in the car seat, as long as she has Fred."

"At least you got a room with two beds this time."

She didn't even dignify that with a response. Instead, she opened the door on the wall across from the beds, the one that led to the adjoining room. The door from the other room was locked, of course, but there were ways around that. 

"What are you doing?" Hobson put Addie down on the bed and sat next to her. He unzipped the backpack. 

"Securing the location." Addie did one flipover and started a second, taking her perilously close to the end of the bed. "Watch out." Hobson dropped the backpack and grabbed Addie. "She's more mobile than you'd think."

"Smellier, too," Hobson said, pulling a face at Addie. She stuck out her tongue.

Toni went into the bathroom and dampened a washcloth. "Tell me you know how to change a diaper."

"Never had much of a chance. I'm an only child."

"You can do this." She brought him the washcloth and a towel. "Put the dry one under her. Use the wet one to--you know." He blinked up at her, but he couldn't get out of it by making puppy eyes. "It's not so hard." She waved at Addie's kicking legs. "Unsnap the snaps, get her clothes out of the way."

"So you've done this a lot?" he asked as he set to work on the snaps.

"Enough. Middle kid, lots of younger cousins." She'd been one of three girls out of the fifteen cousins who'd grown up together. Her Italian grandmother, Nonna Sylvia, had insisted she help with the babies as soon as she was old enough for school. It didn't mean Toni wanted to do all the dirty work this time around. "Take the old diaper off and slide the new one under her. The side with the balloons printed on it is the front. Put it on tight."

She opened the sliding glass door--the lock was a joke--and stepped onto the balcony. It was barely wide enough for a pair of metal chairs, and if she stepped to the right or left side, she'd be able to reach out and grab a neighbor's railing. The railing to their own balcony, some kind of metal that must have been painted white decades ago, was dotted with rust spots. At least one bolt was missing from the brackets attaching it to the building. 

"Better keep off the balcony," she said as she stepped back into the room. "It's too visible and--" She stopped short at the foot of the bed. "What are you doing?"

Hobson had completely removed Addie's sleeper--not that Addie, who lay there talking to her feet as she kicked them in the air, minded. He waved his hands at the baby. "I'm trying, but I don't want to hurt her."

"Hobson. Look at her." Addie'd gotten hold of her foot and was sucking on her big toe. "The kid's more flexible than a yoga teacher. You won't break her." Not like Guyette's friends might have, if they'd taken her. And they'd come so damned close...

Shaking off her near-failure, Toni rattled the handle on the adjoining room door. The lock would be simple enough to defeat with a credit card, and the hollow door wouldn't withstand a couple of swift kicks. Anybody who wanted to get in that way would have no problem. It was a weakness, but she could turn it around.

"The trick is to catch her feet in one hand, wipe and change with the other one," she told Hobson, who was trying to duck Addie's free leg while he undid the diaper tabs. She nabbed a pen from the nightstand. "Be right back." 

She stepped onto the balcony again, pulled one of the chairs over to the side, and climbed onto it. Who was the patron saint of cat burglars? Nonna Sylvia would have known--she'd known all the saints--but the only one Toni could remember at the moment was Saint Michael, patron saint of cops. She channeled Carlo and Gabe instead; standing on her tiptoes, she grabbed the bottom of the railing for the adjacent third floor room's balcony and swung herself across. The balls of her feet brushed the railing of the neighboring balcony for a split second before she landed on its solid floor, breathing a prayer of thanks for her older brothers' training on their swing set and the gables of their home. 

Her law enforcement training came in handy for the next step: using the pen's clip to pick the lock on the sliding door. She took a minute to mess up the beds before she unlocked the door into her room, where she found Hobson on his feet, clutching a freshly diapered Addie against his chest. He looked from Toni to the balcony and back. "What the hell are you doing?"

"I didn't want to stick around and watch the carnage. Told you you could change her." She rubbed Addie's hair. "Heya, bug. Want to play?" Addie's blanket was still in the carrier; Toni spread it on the floor in front of the sliding door and put Addie on her stomach. She started in on her baby push-ups, lifting her head and looking from side to side in a way that always reminded Toni of a turtle. She gave it three minutes, tops, before the kid was under the desk or pulling the comforters off the beds. 

Hobson held up the stinky diaper. "Put that one next door," she told him. The less time she had to spend with that smell, the better. To her surprise, he did it; he even closed both doors between the rooms when she told him to.

"So, what--" He waggled a hand between her and the door, sniffed it, and headed to the bathroom to wash up. "What is this all about?"

"I don't want anyone in there. If the hotel assigns that room to anyone, they'll take one look at the mess--or one whiff of it--and run back down to the desk to ask for a different one."

"But you--" He stepped out of the bathroom, shaking his hands, and stared at the sliding door; when he looked back at her, he shook his head. "You jumped the balcony? Geez, Brigatti."

She shrugged. "It was more of a climb and swing than a jump. I'm not stupid."

He narrowed his eyes, as if she'd somehow betrayed him by taking the risk. "Could've fooled me."

"This is my operation. What looks like stupid might save your life. Speaking of which, sit." She pointed at the bed she'd assigned him. He sat; Addie yelled, "Ba!" and army crawled toward his sneakered feet. 

Toni leaned back against the desk. "There are rules. I need to know you'll follow them."

"Oh, come on, Brigatti." Hobson flopped his hands against his legs. "I'm here. I changed the diaper. I'm Greg Snow from Decatur. What more do you want?"

What she wanted was for all this to be over, but they'd barely even started. "Rule number one: no contact with _anyone_ unless you clear it with me." He nodded. "Rule number two: if it comes down to Addie or me, you stay with _her_ , you protect _her_. She is our number one priority." 

Hobson reached down and pulled his shoelace out of Addie's mouth. "You don't have to tell me that."

"Yeah, I do. You could have dropped her out there on the bridge."

He looked up from the knot he was tying. "I didn't. I wouldn't."

She knew he wouldn't, but she had to make this point. "You get too worried about me, you could put us all at risk. Addie is the job, but she's more than the job. Right now, she has to be everything."

"Okay, fine, I'll do what you say. Addie comes first." He leaned back, his hands planted behind him, while Addie drummed on his shoes. "You going to tell me exactly what we're up against?"

"You going to tell me why you showed up on my doorstep this morning? The real answer." 

"That part of your rules?" Something flashed through his eyes--something she recognized. He was close to telling her. He was also blaming himself, though for what or why, she had no idea.

She'd asked Crumb about it once, one of those nights she was supposed to meet Hobson to go to a movie. Marissa had been preoccupied with a kitchen crisis and Crumb had been tending bar. Post-Savalas, post-Amber, Toni had wanted a few answers about this guy before she committed to anything longer than a Cusak flick. She'd let Crumb mix her a drink and then said, "So...Hobson?"

Crumb gave her a flinty stare honed over decades of interrogations. "I assume you've read his file."

At least he hadn't insulted her by asking what she meant. "Interesting stuff in there," she said. Interesting holes, too, but those could wait. "Most of his history with the department tracks back to you, even after you retired." 

"Yeah, well, you know how those wannabe psychics are." He set to wiping the pint glasses lined up on the bar, one after the other. "You listen to 'em once, they come back every time their hocus-pocus radar goes off."

It was her turn to stare him down. "That's not the whole story, and we both know it."

He wiped another glass, jaw working as he came to some kind of decision. When he put the glass down, he planted his hands on the bar, leaning in close. "I have a few theories, sure. But I didn't want to encourage him coming around, so I never pursued them." 

"You didn't want to be the guy who listened to the wannabe psychic," she guessed. She already knew what that could do to a detective's reputation. 

Crumb shrugged. "Goes both ways. Half the time he ended up a suspect." This time, the staredown was completely mutual; they both knew how easy it was to mistake knowledge for guilt. "Eventually, most cops stop listening to that kind of guy."

"But you didn't." She took a sip of her perfectly mixed Venice spritz and was about to ask Crumb for the details of his theories when Hobson rushed in, all apologies and excuses. 

"We can continue this later," she told Crumb as they left.

"Oh, I don't know that we'll need to." The corners of his eyes had crinkled--at Toni, or at Hobson's startled look, she hadn't been able to tell. "You're a detective. Detect."

What she detected now, in the forced confines of the hotel room, was her own wariness, exhaustion, and regret, all bundled up and reflected back at her in Hobson's question. Was the truth--the whole truth, both their truths--one of her rules?

"No, actually, it's not." Why open that can of worms when they weren't even close to being set up for the next day or so? She felt her own shoulders drop at the same moment his did, out of relief or disappointment, she wasn't sure. Pushing away from the desk, she said, "Look, I'm going to run over to the mall, get us some food and calling cards and a few other things so we can survive a few days here if we have to."

"We're stuck here for days? What'll we do for--" He met her eyes and gulped.

"I'm on duty. Don't get any ideas."

"Oh, believe me, that's the last thing I want."

Was he serious, or was this his idea of flirting? At this point, she didn't want to know. She shoved most of the money in her pocket. "Stay here. Let Addie roll around on the floor or the bed, but not off it. Make her up a bottle if she cries. Stay off the balcony; that railing's wobbly. You'll be fine."

"It's you I'm worried about." He tried to stand, but Addie had hold of his jeans and was pulling herself up. "Look, let me do this."

Right now, she wanted nothing more than to trade places, to sit down and stop for a few minutes and let someone, even Hobson, take over. But she was pretty sure once she stopped, it would be impossible to get going again, and right about the time she crashed, Guyette's friends would show up. "I'll be back."

He pried Addie's hands off his jeans and picked her up. "I've heard that before." 

"And I did come back, right on schedule." Toni waved as she walked to the door, her mental list of things they'd need lengthening with every step. "Bolt the door behind me."

~*~*~*~


	4. Chapter 4

Gary waited a few seconds after the door closed, then flopped back on the bed, leaving Addie sitting on his chest. He'd been chasing after Brigatti all day; even when they were stuck in the car together, he'd been behind her, literally and figuratively. But if he drove her to jump balconies and wander off to shopping centers on her own after she lectured him about keeping safe and following the rules, maybe it was time to back off. Not that he wouldn't keep sticking his neck out for her, but at this point he had the feeling she'd ducked out at least in part because she was tired of being chased. If Cat or the paper wanted him to go after her this time, they'd have to send him some kind of sign.

"And then there's you," he said to Addie. She sucked on her fist and stared out the sliding glass door. "I don't think you can get away from me the way Auntie Toni can. Or Auntie Nia? Mom? I don't even know what to call her at this point."

"Gaba!" Addie suggested. He was pretty sure that was it--hard to tell when she talked around her fist.

"Good thinking. Let's lock the door." With a grunt, he sat up. Addie tried to imitate the sound and cracked herself up, letting out a cross between a bark and a belly laugh. 

Gary looked through the peephole as he threw the bolt; there was no one in sight. It hit him, as he unwrapped Addie's fist from his hair again, that Brigatti kept leaving him alone with the baby. That had to mean she trusted him, right?

The minute his hair was free, Addie latched onto his shirt collar. "Those buttons aren't candy, you know. What am I supposed to do with you now?" This room was getting smaller by the minute. "Do we play games? Sing songs? Look for Cat?" Addie seemed content, for the moment at least, to stand on the bed if he held her under the arms. "You okay with strangers, or are we friends now?" he asked, then remembered the way she'd screamed when the goon had tried to take her. "Maybe you just have good taste."

He settled back against the headboard and turned on the television, surfing through channels until he found a baseball game. Addie sat next to him for a few seconds, then wobbled onto her side. "Hey, we're in luck. Cross-town series. Guess I know who you're rooting for."

"Ba!"

"The ball, right. Here, let's get you a toy. Or--oh, that works for you, huh?" In the time it took for him to get the backpack open, she'd stuck the remote in her mouth. "It's a miracle you're not sick all the time. What, you got some kind of super-immunity?" Luckily, he was able to trade the remote for the teething ring he'd bought earlier. She gummed and drooled at it with a scowl of concentration. "Let's see how many ways the Cubbies can find to lose this one."

He didn't pay a whole lot of attention to the game. Most of his time was spent entertaining Addie--it took about five minutes to see why Rachel had been concerned about keeping her cooped up in a hotel room for a week or more--or talking himself out of picking up the phone and calling Marissa. For all his certainty he was doing the right thing, he couldn't quite shake the image of Cat running back toward home.

Of course, half the time Cat seemed to like Marissa better than Gary anyway. Maybe he'd just wanted tuna. "What did your mom do to get messed up with the Guyettes anyway?" he asked Addie. She stuck her tongue out at him.

Gary knew little more than he'd heard in the car. Dennis Guyette had been blasted in the primaries in his run for U.S. Senate; the failed campaign didn't cool his ambitions, but it did drain his coffers. And then the guy who'd won the primary got caught with a mistress, and the stress of the bad publicity led to a heart attack that killed him. Somehow Guyette came up with the money to take his place. It must have been his grandfather, whoever'd made the first move. The people of Illinois had been lucky Dennis hadn't won the election, or the state would have had an even bigger mess on its hands.

Still, the mess was big enough that a mother and child were caught up in it. Addie'd already lost her dad, and nearly lost everything else that morning. But here she was, scooting around on a hotel bed with someone to catch her foot and pull her back when she reached the opposite edge. She threw the teething ring onto the floor with a happy squeal. Gary retrieved the ring and wiped it on his shirt. "I have to tell her about the paper, you know." 

Addie rolled onto her back and pulled her toes into her mouth. 

"No, really, I do. I'm done lying to her. Too much work." He hated the way Brigatti'd looked at him when he'd given her that opening, asking if telling her was one of the rules. She'd looked...stricken. Wary. Exhausted. Like he was wearing her out; like she was about to write him off as a mystery she couldn't be bothered to solve.

He didn't want that, but he wasn't sure of the right way to tell her. He'd avoided it in part because of other reactions he'd gotten: Meredith taking a job in Washington; Renee laughing it off; Erica beating a retreat back to Galena. Whatever he'd messed up with them, he wanted to get right with Brigatti. She was worth it, and maybe that was the problem. Marissa was right; Brigatti was different. 

"She is a cop, after all," he said. Addie flipped onto her stomach and scooted over to him, thwapping on his leg in time to the music on a commercial. "Yeah, I know. It's good and bad. Wish we could talk to Crumb about it." Ever since he'd started thinking seriously about some kind of relationship with Brigatti, he'd wanted more than ever to know why Crumb didn't want to know about the paper. Was it some kind of unwritten cop code? What would believing Gary--if she _could_ believe him--do to Brigatti's standing with guys like Armstrong and that frat boy partner of hers? "But it ought to be up to her whether she believes me or not. Which she can't decide unless she knows the truth. Which she can't unknow once I tell her." 

"Goba."

"You're right. We won't get anywhere unless I tell her. I just have to figure out how."

Midway through the sixth inning--the Cubs were actually ahead by a run, which Gary told Addie was only because she was a lucky charm--Brigatti knocked on the door. "I'm back!" she called, chipper as a cheerleader. It was all for show, though; when Gary, with Addie in his arms, checked the peephole, Brigatti was scanning up and down the hall, and she wasn't exactly smiling when he let her in. "Back up," she whispered, shoving him past the bathroom. "Anyone could see her!"

"What was I supposed to do? If I leave her on the bed, she'll roll off, and who knows what's on this floor."

Brigatti threw the locks on the door. "Anything happen while I was gone?"

"Cubs are ahead by a run, and the kid likes her toes," Gary said. He counted the bags in her hands. "Geez, did you spend all our money?"

"Close." Everything about Brigatti--her tight voice, her stiff posture, even the brisk way she dumped the sacks on her bed--radiated tension. "Addie may not last twenty-four hours on that mini pack of diapers you bought. You and I both needed something to sleep in--" She tossed him a three-pack of undershirts. "--and food, so we don't have to go out, and--" She waved a hand. "You know, stuff."

"T-shirts?" Gary asked. Addie grabbed for the package, nearly falling out of his arms in her eagerness to shove it in her mouth. "You trying to protect my modesty, Detective?"

She rolled her eyes. "More like I don't want to smell the one you're wearing if that's all you have for the next few days. How's she doing?"

"Who, Addie? She's great." Better than Brigatti looked. "Just have to keep everything that comes within reach out of her mouth." He nodded toward the bed, where the nearly demolished copy of _Where Chicago_ lay in colorful, goobery tatters. "I tried reading to her. I saw in a movie once that babies don't care what you read as long as they can hear your voice, but she was more interested in chewing on the pictures of monuments and museums."

"If you're getting your parenting tips from _Three Men and a Baby_ , we're in more trouble than I thought." Brigatti started unloading the stuff she'd bought--most of it for the baby, Gary noted--into the drawers under the television. She held up one of the sacks. "Want a soda or something?"

"No thanks. Aw, crap, Cubs, can't you manage to not suck just this once?" he added when the White Sox tied the game on a left field single. Addie didn't seem too happy about it either; she dropped the package of t-shirts and whapped at Gary's chest a couple times with an unhappy whine. "She can't have understood that."

"Probably hungry. I'll get her bottle." Brigatti mixed the formula and took Addie, sitting on the bed to feed her.

Gary tried to watch the game, but there wasn't much offense going on, and his attention kept drifting back to Addie, who'd suck on the bottle for a few seconds, then pull away and look up at Brigatti, or over at him, like she was trying to send a message or ask a question.

"You missing your mom?" Brigatti asked softly. She sat all rigid, like she was waiting for another call to arms, but she smiled at Addie and brushed the little fingers holding the bottle with her own. "Been a long time since the two of you've been separated, huh?" Addie gave a funny, high-pitched grunt, tried the bottle, pulled away again. Brigatti sighed. "Bug, it really is your nap time."

Gary retrieved Fred from the car seat and handed it to Brigatti.

"Thanks," she said, a note of surprise in her voice, as if Gary hadn't been told more than once that Addie wouldn't sleep without her toy. Addie let go of the bottle as soon as she saw Fred. Gary set the bottle on the nightstand, while Brigatti rubbed the platypus's bill against Addie's nose. 

He sat on the edge of his own bed, ignoring the still-tied game. "What's the story with that thing?" He figured it was a safer question than most of the others that lay between them. 

"Didn't you have a favorite toy or blanket when you were a kid? Or did you just play with your cat?"

"No cat back then." He'd always wanted a dog, but his mom had vetoed it. Too messy; too much responsibility. He'd have to remind her of that next time she called and whined about not having grandchildren. "When I was really little, I had a teddy bear. Like a normal kid."

"You? Normal?" There was almost--almost--a twinkle in her eye. "What was its name?"

"Uh..." He looked down at his hands, knowing the shit he was about to get and playing it for all it was worth. It might make her relax a little. "Teddy. Ted for short."

It did the trick, at least for half a minute; she laughed and told Addie, "Good thing he's not your dad. You'd be named Baby Girl. Girl for short. For a guy who gets some pretty creative feelings, you don't have much of an imagination, do you?"

Gary wasn't about to tell her all the ways he'd imagined her dying over the past few hours. Or any of the other things he'd imagined about her. "What about you?"

She raised an eyebrow. "You want to know about my imagination?"

Much as he might have enjoyed taking that opening, it wasn't a good idea, not with the both of them trapped in a hotel room. "Did you have a stuffed animal?"

"I had a blanket. Yellow, waffle weave. I took it everywhere. After it fell apart, I kept shreds of it in a jewelry box for years."

Despite his supposed lack of imagination, Gary had a flash of a very young Antonia Brigatti toddling along and dragging her blanket behind her. He wondered if her childhood need for security had anything to do with the gun she kept with her now, but he knew better than to ask.

Addie pulled back from Fred and let out a stream of babble. With all the "laaaaa"s, it almost sounded like singing. "Is she talking to the platypus?" Gary asked.

"Maybe." Brigatti pulled Addie, whose eyelids were getting droopy again, in close. "It was a gift from her dad. Rachel found it after he died."

Gary wanted to ask. He needed to know how the paper could have let him down when it came to Mike Pemberton's death and how, if it had happened on Brigatti's watch, it could have let her down. But he hesitated, picking at a loose thread on the floral atrocity of a comforter. 

And she didn't say anything more. He looked up, opened his mouth to ask, but she shook her head and whispered, "She's almost gone." 

Addie sighed, and her whole body went limp, just like that. Gary'd missed the window, narrow as it was. On the television--and across town--the game was going into extra innings. 

"We've got an hour if we're lucky," Brigatti said. She buckled Addie--and Fred--into the car seat and set it on the middle of her bed, then pulled a mini screwdriver out of one of her sacks. She turned the hotel's phone over and unscrewed the plate, screw by screw. 

"What are you doing?"

She spared him a look that was pure annoyance. Her words were clipped, and if she'd shed some of the tension a few minutes ago, it was back in full force now. "Are you going to ask me that every time I check for a listening device?"

"No, I mean--" Damn it, he was a step behind again. "Why are you doing it?"

She reassembled the phone and moved on to the outlet where the bedside lamps plugged in, unscrewing the cover and pulling at the wires. "Never know where there'll be a bug."

Gary'd never actually seen a bug, so he wasn't even sure how realistic it was to expect one in real life. "I know where there's not one." 

"Oh, and where would that be?" She headed for the outlet on the opposite wall, where the television was plugged in.

Gary stood and spread his arms open. "Anywhere in this room. They can't know we're here. We didn't know we'd be here."

She turned off the television. "Would you let me do my job?"

"Brigatti." He caught her elbow and swung her around to face him, risking her death glare. "Whatever you're running from, it isn't here."

"You sure about that?" she snapped, but her gaze searched his, looking for--for what? Was she finally going to let him catch up?

He held himself--and her--steady for one breath, then two. "Yeah," he said. "I am."

Brigatti closed her eyes and leaned in until her forehead touched his arm. "I never saw it coming," she whispered. "I didn't realize we were compromised. I didn't hear them in the garage planting a bomb. I didn't hear the ladder go up against the house."

"Maybe because it didn't until the explosion."

She lifted her head. The self-blame in her eyes hit him like a mallet. "I should have _known_." 

With anyone else, he might not have had any idea what to say. But for some reason, he knew exactly what she needed to hear. "You know what else you didn't know? You didn't know you'd been hung out to dry and you were out there on your own. You didn't know that, but you got us all out of there safe and sound."

"That was you."

"It was both of us. You saved my life with that shot, you got us to this point, where we're all safe, everybody's safe, and that's because of you, and because you're not alone anymore. You got me, you got Armstrong." He nodded at Addie, sound asleep in the carrier on Brigatti's bed. "You got Rachel and Addie. Stop running for a while." Gary brought his free arm up, but she stepped away. He thought maybe she nodded, but she also tucked strands of hair that had escaped her ponytail behind her ear. He reached for the screwdriver, still gripped tight in her fist. "I'll check the rest of the outlets."

"Hobson--"

"Let me help. Please."

Her fist uncurled, and he took the screwdriver. She sat on the bed and put her head in her hands. 

"You want an aspirin or something?" he asked.

"God, yes."

He fished the bottle out of the backpack and a soda out of the drawer where she'd stashed the food and handed them to her. 

"Thanks." She flashed him a rueful smile. Maybe, just maybe he'd done her some good.

There were only a couple outlets left to check, one under the desk, and one in the bit of hallway alongside the bathroom that lead to the door. Gary moved the hardback chair away from the desk and knelt, reaching under the desk to unplug the lamp. "What am I looking for here?" he asked as he unscrewed the outlet cover. 

"Looks like a transmitter; might have a plastic cover. Round or square." Brigatti took a swig of her soda. "Sometimes there's a blinking light."

"Right." It wasn't as if he knew what the inside of an outlet was supposed to look like, but he figured he'd notice anything that was too out of place among the mess of wires. He moved to the hallway; Brigatti turned on the game. Still tied in the bottom of the eleventh. There was nothing in the hall outlet, or in the one in the bathroom she told him to check, just in case.

"Satisfied?" Gary asked as he dropped onto his bed. He sat like she did, back against the headboard.

She nodded and pointed her soda can at the television. The Sox had just gone ahead by a run in the top of the twelfth. "Boy, you're not kidding. The Cubs really do suck." 

"They have last ups. They could still come through."

"That." She pointed at him across the nightstand. "That is exactly...yeah," she finished with a sigh. 

"Huh?"

Brigatti tilted her head back against the wall, closed her eyes briefly, then sat up and crossed her legs. She tugged Fred out of Addie's arms and turned him over a couple times, then looked at Gary. "You know who Dennis Guyette is?" She scowled. " _What_ he is?"

"I know his dad left the whole mob scene behind for the sake of his kids, started some charity--"

"Helen's Hope," Brigatti filled in. "They fund cancer research. Named after his wife, who survived leukemia when she was a kid."

"And then his son turns around and jumps right back into Grandpa's lap." Gary glanced at the television. The Sox had added an insurance run and now, in the bottom of the twelfth, Sammy Sosa batted into a double play. Figured. 

"Or Grandpa recruited him, yeah. Turns out a senate campaign's a fairly effective tool for money laundering, as long as nobody looks too closely at what all the advertising costs. Told you," she added, when the final batter struck out. Gary turned the television off. "And you didn't hear this from me," Brigatti went on, "but his opponent in the primary election didn't have a mistress until Dennis renewed the family ties. We're not one hundred percent sure his heart attack was just stress, either."

"So you think it was murder?"

"Nothing we can prove at this point," Brigatti said, "but that's the going theory."

"What a family," Gary muttered.

Brigatti pulled Addie's car seat closer, rocking it, even though Addie hadn't stirred. "Rachel was an intern for Dennis Guyette down at the state house. When he decided to run for national office, he made her a field director for the Chicago area. He thought she was just another starry-eyed intern."

"Rachel? I mean, I know I only met her this morning, but she doesn't seem like someone you could fool very easily."

"Especially not with an accounting degree from Northwestern. When she found discrepancies in Dennis's books, she started listening harder to conversations around the office. She took a close look at the numbers and figured out Dennis Guyette had regrafted himself onto the family tree. One weekend she had Mike, who was some kind of computer whiz, help her collect evidence, and they went to the U.S. Attorney's office."

"Which put her and her family in danger," Gary said. 

Brigatti's mouth twisted. "Eventually. At first, the USAO asked her to play dumb while they built a case. They don't want to just take down Dennis Guyette, they want Phillip's whole operation, and that requires gathering a lot of evidence without the targets knowing about it. It worked for a while; I think Guyette and his people thought being pregnant made Rachel stupid. They didn't realize she was onto them for months, so even though documents and computer files were tough to come across, there were a lot of discussions she overheard, a lot she saw them do, that was pretty devastating when it came to the indictment. Once she gets in front of a jury, it'll all be over."

"But the Guyettes, they must have found out, if Mike--" Gary swallowed. Was the anger that flashed across Brigatti's face directed at him, and if so, was it because he was bringing it up again, or because she blamed him for not saving Mike the second time? 

"We think they began to suspect Rachel just before Addie was born. That time you showed up at the dunes?"

"I was out there with some friends--"

She waved his half-assed explanation away. "Spare me. It was an attempt on both their lives, though Rachel claims she wouldn't have ridden on the four-wheeler at that point in her pregnancy." 

"She was pretty hesitant, yeah." It hadn't taken much to convince her. 

"Thanks to your intervention, they got scared instead of dead. The USAO put them into witness protection. WITSEC shuffled them off to Philly as soon as Addie was born."

"Philly? As in, Philadelphia, Pennsylvania?"

"No, Hobson. Philly, Antarctica."

"It's just--" Gary looked down at his hands. Maybe he should have felt relief that it had happened beyond his reach, but mostly he just wished it hadn't happened. "--that explains a lot, if that's where Mike died." 

"I guess Philly doesn't have any mild-mannered super heroes."

"Must not have any decent cops in witness protection, either."

"Look, I told you, he was out running one morning and got hit. The guy they arrested confessed, so it--"

"Brigatti!" The baby jumped in her sleep; Gary lowered his voice. This was what he got for trying to give her a compliment. "I'm just saying, if you had been in Philly, Mike would be alive now."

"Well, yeah, because I would have been on them twenty-four-seven. But at that point, nobody knew they'd been located. He had a reasonable expectation of safety, but that includes the same day-to-day risks we all run."

"You don't think it was a day-to-day risk that killed him. You said so yourself in the car." 

"Thinking anything about this case is routine is like thinking the Cubs can come back in the twelfth inning. It'll only break your heart in the end." She walked over to the sliding door and looked out for a minute, then started pacing the room, what little there was of it. "There's too much evidence tying the driver to the accident, and none at all tying him to Phillip or Dennis Guyette. But the thing is--" She stopped in front of the television, arms crossed. Her scowl was distant. "It was stupid of him to go out on his own. Rachel said he did it all the time. But it doesn't line up. It's all a little too neat."

"Too much of a coincidence. You think they had him killed somehow." She nodded. "What does Rachel think?"

"Rachel's sure it's Guyette, and pissed there's no way to prove it. If they were trying to scare her out of testifying, it backfired. I've never seen a witness more motivated."

"Good for her." Maybe not so good for Addie, Gary thought. He hoped they'd both survive long enough so Addie could know Rachel for herself.

"After Mike's funeral, they brought Rachel back to Chicago to get ready for the trial," Brigatti said. "Most of the charges against Dennis are state and federally based, campaign finance fraud, but his offices were in city limits, so everyone's in on the fun. CPD was furious about the way the US Marshals ran the detail in Philly. They wanted point on protecting Rachel, and since I'm the detective with the most experience in that area, I got called up to bat." Her mouth twisted. "Which is ironic, given my experience comes from being a US Marshal. I'm nobody's favorite in all this."

"Except for Rachel's."

She shrugged that off. "If it wasn't such a big case, I'd suspect the feds of turning a blind eye to whatever Guyette's people are doing on the inside. They aren't too thrilled to see the Second City PD doing a better job protecting a witness than they did. I'm sure they'll be salivating to kick me off the case after today." 

"But--letting Guyette get to Rachel, that's not just making the city look bad, that's--" It was Brigatti's obituary with no cause of death, that's what it was. What it would have been. He cleared his throat. "So you think we're up against the mob and department infighting?" That explained her paranoia and the way she'd taken them completely off the grid.

Brigatti rubbed her temple. "Addie is my job. The rest will sort itself out eventually."

"I get that," Gary said, thinking of the scratches on his shin, of Cat high-tailing it in one direction while he went in the other. He reached for his back pocket, but of course there was nothing there. "Sometimes you have to go with your gut." 

Addie flopped her head back and forth and let out a couple "Ah-ah"s. She didn't open her eyes, but Gary unbuckled her from the seat and picked her up anyway. He turned her into his shoulder, rubbing her back. Seemed like she'd earned a little extra comfort. "Poor kid."

"Yeah." Brigatti looked like she could use another aspirin or something. She reached into her pocket and pulled out two plastic rectangles. "I need to check in with Paul. There's a pay phone in the lobby, and I got some calling cards. Here--" She held one out to him, then snatched it out of his reach. "Emergencies only, and a pilsner shortage in River North doesn't qualify, got it?" He nodded. She gave him the card and another half-grin. Not as good as a full smile, but he'd take it for now. "Back in ten."

"Wait." Gary shifted Addie so he could hold onto her with one arm while he used the pen and pad on the nightstand to write the license plate number from earlier. "I'm guessing this is one of the things you want to talk to Armstrong about."

"We'll make a detective out of you yet."

"We got her to stand still for a few minutes anyway," Gary told Addie once Brigatti left. She slapped at his chest and let out a loud, hungry cry. He settled on the bed and offered her the bottle. She stared right at him while she drank. "I would have told her, you know," he said, "but she wouldn't believe me without proof, and I don't have that right now, do I? Why do I keep missing my chances with her?" 

"Ma," Addie gurbled, leaking milk onto her chin.

~*~*~*~

Toni meant to keep the phone call with Paul short and sweet. Check in, make sure they'd each secured their people, give him the Taurus's plate number, and get out before anyone who was listening in could trace them. It wasn't likely anyone would have found them yet, but it never hurt to be careful.

Paul told her--obliquely--that Rachel was with one of the boatload of attorneys on the case, reviewing her testimony. "Ora said to tell you thanks for saving her witness."

Ora Brook was the state prosecutor in charge of the case against Dennis Guyette. Toni'd worked with her a couple times before, starting with the case against Vincent Corbel back when she'd been a US Marshal. Back when she'd first met Hobson. "So we're good then?" she asked. Or at least as good as they could be.

"Yeah." She was about to hang up when he added, "I've done my best to keep as much of this as I can under wraps. Had to tell the captain you're elsewhere with the baby so he'd let me take over the detail, but I didn't mention...you know. He's taking some flak from the other agencies about not knowing what's going on, but he can hold them off. I told him we need to be on the lookout for a leak, starting with Delano. Apparently he showed up later at the fire, saying he'd just run out for coffee." 

"Possible." Delano had taken quick breaks from surveillance more than once, and at the time, Toni hadn't been inclined to blame him. Suburbia was fairly dead during working hours, and she'd...

...well, obviously she'd let her guard down, whether Delano was lying or not. The guy hadn't even made full detective status yet; by rights he was a nobody on the radar of a mob boss like Guyette. She'd had to show him how to fill out the paperwork to change vehicles from one shift to the next. Someone higher up had to be involved. 

"You think he's in on it?" Paul asked.

"Can't say for sure without talking to him." Which she'd really like to do. Even if Delano wasn't part of this, the guy had taken off on her, and for that, he deserved an ass-kicking at the very least. If she'd ever again be in a position to kick other cops' asses. This wouldn't be the first time she'd veered off the straight and narrow with CPD, and she wasn't sure how much patience her captain had left. 

"Do you--" She didn't know how to ask for reassurance, especially not from someone who'd saved her butt several times over already. 

"What?" he asked when she didn't finish.

"Do you think someone in the department made sure I was the one to get this case because they were planning to scuttle it from the beginning?"

"You mean, do I think they pegged you as a weak link? If they did, they're idiots. Banks made you team leader because you're so damned good at protection. Hell, I only let you to take off on your own because you're the second best detective in the city."

Her grin at "second-best" came and went quickly, a distorted flash in the fingerprint-smudged metal wall of the phone cubicle. "I'm not exactly on my own." Anonymity over the phone was an illusion; if anyone was listening they were bound to know all the players. Still, pretending it was possible made her feel better, especially with the kid at the desk openly watching her while he pretended to sort paperwork.

"Oh, believe me, he needs you more than you need him. Especially after--" Paul stopped abruptly, as if he'd swallowed the rest of his words.

"What is it?"

His voice shifted to a lower gear--slower, more reluctant. "I don't know if I should tell you this."

"Whatever you think about how I've handled it, this is still my case."

"Okay, yeah." Another pause. If he didn't get going, she would have to hang up, or come through the line and strangle it out of him. "Got a phone call about an hour ago. There's a good chance your roommate was ID'd at the scene. Maybe it was his car, or maybe someone recognized him. Maybe the guy you shot really did hear his name."

Any sense of reassurance he'd given her vanished. "What makes you say that?"

"Two guys came into his place asking questions."

Toni could fill in the missing pieces--the important ones, anyway. "They didn't get answers?"

"No. Said they were salesmen. Had a couple of beers and left. Paid cash."

"Of course."

"We have their descriptions--and their business cards, which have a discontinued number and a fake address. This is good, though. We know where we stand. It means they don't know where you are, and you can use this as leverage to make your friend there lie low."

"Maybe." Thing was, he hadn't shown any sign of bolting, not for hours. 

"Are you sure you'll be okay with him? The way he acted in the car makes me wonder what he's up to."

She glanced behind her; the desk clerk turned his head away and pretended to straighten the flyers in the plastic holder on the counter. "He's calmed down since then." Movement at the front of the hotel caught Toni's eye. A man and woman--late twenties, Caucasian, firmly middle class, judging by their suitcases--came in through the front doors. The woman looked her way. "I'd better go."

"Just remember, he's not your partner. He's not even a cop."

Not one of us, Paul meant. Hobson couldn't be expected to go by CPD's book because he didn't know the book, let alone all the unwritten codes and expectations cops shared among themselves. If she'd had more time, if they'd been somewhere else, she would have pointed out that not so long ago most of the cops in Chicago would have--hell, they _had_ \--said pretty much the same thing about her. She was a woman, and she had been a fed. And she had jumped a line of long-time uniforms when she made detective. Not even Paul had trusted her at the start.

"Maybe I'm better off with a partner who isn't one of us." 

"I just mean--"

"Gotta go." She hung up without waiting for his response and hurried through the lobby, keeping her eyes on the faded teal carpet. Harder for the couple checking in to identify her if they never saw her face. 

A pair of housekeepers in the hallway said hello; she waved without looking up. All those people hanging around pushed her faster toward the room upstairs, even though she was dreading spending the next few days with Hobson in this weird limbo state where they pretended at a relationship they'd been denying themselves for more than a year. That moment of weakness she'd had, leaning on his arm like that, couldn't happen again; she couldn't let this get out of control, and honestly, it was probably better if she didn't know his secret until this thing was over. If that wall between them came down, others might. Maybe that was what Crumb--and even Paul, much as he wanted to know Hobson's secret himself--had been trying to tell her.

She was so preoccupied, she forgot her key card wouldn't be enough to get in the room. "Damn," she muttered when the handle turned but the door only opened a crack. Hobson--holding Addie, of course--was there to throw the bolt before she'd finished knocking.

"You could put her on the floor when you let me in," Toni said. "Beats having anyone in the hall see her."

He backpedalled into the room. "I checked the peephole first. If I put her down, she's pulling herself up on stuff before I can turn around. She already took out the desk lamp."

The lamp lay on its side under the desk. Toni ruffled Addie's hair. "My little punk rocker. Already trashing hotel rooms." Her fingers brushed Hobson's, which curled over Addie's shoulder, long and sure.

He cleared his throat, and she jumped away, meeting the rare appearance of his shit-eating grin with a scowl. She'd been staring at his hands like a lovestruck kid. True, he had pretty amazing hands, but that wasn't anything she needed to be thinking about right now.

"Everything okay on Armstrong's end?" he asked.

"As far as he could say, yeah." She rubbed her eyes and plopped down on the bed, debating whether or not she should tell him about the guys who'd shown up at his bar. What could he do about it? It sounded like Marissa had done the right thing--kept her mouth shut, gotten a description of the guys, called Paul. She picked up the remote. "We need to watch the local news--" She interrupted herself with a sneeze that started somewhere behind her forehead and shook her all the way to her toes. 

"Crap." The room hadn't triggered her allergies earlier. "Did they clean, or--" She glanced up at Hobson, who stood hesitantly next to the dresser that held the television. Guilt was written across his face like a headline. "That _cat_."

He turned Addie to face her, as if that would protect him. Addie stuck out her curled tongue.

"Where is it? What, did you bring it along in the trunk of the car?" She would have known if the cat had been as close as the backseat--probably wouldn't have been able to drive, the way the damn thing set her off. Right on cue, her nose started running and an itch erupted deep inside her ears.

"I didn't, Brigatti, I swear," Hobson whined as she slipped past him to the bathroom for tissues. "Last I knew, Cat was headed back home from the deli. And then you went downstairs and I fed Addie her bottle and he jumped up on the bed from out of nowhere."

"Hobson--" She sneezed again, into a tissue this time. Already the edges of the room were looking fuzzy, which meant her eyes were puffing up. She had too much to deal with to be incapacitated by a cat "--this is unaccepbbable."

"I didn't bring the cat into the hotel. He just showed up. Same way he always does."

She stopped in front of him, ignoring Addie's chortles and attempts to grab her necklace and her hair. She kept her glare fixed on Hobson. "You are not the infant here."

"I know that."

"You do not need a security item."

"I know that, too."

Even though her vision had gone a little blurry, she could tell he wasn't lying. When he lied to her, he either stuttered and avoided her gaze, or he tried too hard to look her in the eye. He wasn't doing either right now, which probably meant she hadn't scared him enough. "Where. Is. The cat?"

His Adam's apple bobbed like a buoy. "I put it out on the balcony."

She stalked past him to open the sliding door. Heat and humidity poured over her. "There's no cat out here."

"Maybe he jumped. Like you did."

She nailed him with a look that must have conveyed at least part of her annoyance and misery, because he took a few more steps away from her, still holding Addie in front of him like a shield. The only place he had left to go from there was the bathroom. Toni stepped out onto the balcony and peered down to the parking lot. "No fur splat."

"I'm telling you, Brigatti, this is no ordinary cat."

She leaned against the door frame, arms folded. The outside air was spongy, but at least it wasn't full of cat dander. "What is it, then?"

He shrugged while Addie kicked at his gut. "You got me."

"It's _your_ cat, Hobson. You're supposed to know."

"Know what? How a cat traveled thirty miles on its own and found us? This stuff just happens to me. I don't ask for it."

She'd trusted him with Addie, and now he was pulling this shit? Toni slid the door closed and marched up to him, sticking a finger under his nose. Addie grabbed her finger and tried to launch herself forward. "Look at me, Hobson." She blinked her puffy red eyes at him and drew in a sniffle. "This is what your cat does to me. If I can't see or breathe, if the itching inside my head where I can't get to it is driving me nuts, I can't do my job, which includes pro--pro--" The sneeze came out, and Addie squealed with delight. The itch eased a fraction. "--protecting you."

"Well, I know that."

"No, you don't, or I wouldn't be sneezing my head off right now." She tried to pull up another one, but the urge was gone. Her annoyance wasn't. "I need to know I can trust you to keep the cat away from me."

"You can trust me." That was definitely not his lying face. Which pissed her off, because she _did_ trust him, and he still wouldn't tell her the whole truth. "I just can't trust the cat."

"Keep. It. Away. From. Me."

"I put it out, didn't I? Maybe you should take some Sudafed. You know, the medicine I gave you?"

"You are not my doctor." She took a closer look at Addie's sleeper. The little frogs were covered with short orange hairs. She pulled one off and shoved it under Hobson's nose. "You let her play with the cat?"

"I didn't _let_ her. I turned my back for a second and they were rolling around together on the bed."

"You turned your back on her? While she was up on the bed? With the cat?"

"For a second! _Half_ a second. I had to pick up the bottle because the cat knocked it to the floor when he jumped onto the bed."

"You let the cat near her food?"

"I told you, I didn't know he was here at all until he jumped onto the bed!" Hobson turned Addie back into his shoulder, but she pushed her head up, looking from Toni to Hobson and back. "I-I put her on the floor right after that because I didn't want her to roll off. That's when she grabbed the lamp cord and pulled it off the desk."

Toni picked up the lamp. It weighed at least six pounds. "She could have been hurt--she could have been killed!"

"I pulled her out of the way!" There he went with the puppy dog eyes again. "Brigatti, I swear you can trust me with her."

Her nose was still runny. She stomped into the bathroom for another tissue. "I told you," she said between sniffles, "Addie has to come first, and you don't _think_ , you bring her to the door--"

"Because I didn't want her to get hurt!"

"You opened up the sliding doors and went out on the balcony where anyone could see you."

"To let the cat out!" He was loud enough they could probably hear him in the hall. Addie's eyebrows drew together and she let out a whimper.

"God, Hobson, if I didn't think you'd be in more danger at home than staying here, I'd send you back in a heartbeat."

Addie broke into a wail. Hobson pushed her head into his shoulder and rubbed her back. "Well, you--wait a minute, what's going on at home?"

"Don't let her cry; the walls here are like paper. Do you _want_ those people to find us? They're already on the trail."

"I'm not the one who started yelling!" Addie lifted her head and yowled. She held out her arms to Toni. "What do you mean, 'on the trail'? What happened at the bar? Here, take her. She wants you, for some reason."

Addie practically jumped into Toni's arms, curling into a ball as if she wanted to make herself as small as possible. "Maybe because you're scaring the crap out of her." 

Hobson sat back against the desk. "Yeah, well, you're scaring the crap out of me."

It wasn't Hobson's admission, or his confused look, that took the edge off her anger; the moment Addie buried her face under Toni's chin, she felt herself relax a smidge. "Sh-sh-sh," she soothed, walking the narrow space between the beds and the rest of the furniture. "It's okay, baby bug, don't cry."

But Addie couldn't shut it off like a switch, anymore than Toni could turn off her allergic reaction. She rubbed her face against Toni's shirt and thwapped at her arm, as if she needed to make sure these adults knew how thoroughly they'd upset her. "It's all right," Toni told her. "The big mean man will stop yelling now, won't you?"

Hobson cringed. "I didn't mean to scare her."

She stopped in front of him, still bouncing and swaying. "I know you didn't. But she hasn't been around a lot of men lately, and your voice is deeper and louder than she's used to." Addie lifted her head and stared at Hobson. Tears streaked her face. "She's pretty far out of her element right now. All wound up with nowhere to go."

"I get that." He held his hand out to Addie, palm up, as if she were a strange dog. "Sorry, kid."

Addie sniffled, but she took his finger and gnawed on it for a bit. "I think that's her forgiveness," Toni said.

"I'll take it." Hobson watched Addie chew on his finger. "Brigatti, what happened at my bar?"

She disentangled Addie from Hobson; the kid immediately grabbed hold of her necklace, tugging at the chain until she had enough slack to wrap her fist around it and get it into her mouth. Toni was used to it. "Someone showed up there asking questions about you."

Hobson shot up. "Who? When?" He grabbed the handset of the desk phone even though she shook her head. 

"I don't know. Couple of guys went in sometime between when we left and now. Asked about you and stayed long enough to have a beer or two, probably waiting to see if you'd show."

His knuckles whitened. "Long enough to plant those bugs you're always looking for?"

"I doubt they got anywhere near a phone." 

"But you'll send someone to check it out, right?" Inexplicably, his free hand reached for his back pocket. She thought he gave a slight shake of his head before dropping it back to his side.

"If-- _if_ \--they planted a bug, we're going to let them think it's working. As long as you're not there, they won't get anything, because the only one who knows anything is Marissa, and she wouldn't say anything, would she?"

"She wouldn't."

"She had someone give Paul a description. Probably won't do a whole lot of good, but they know to alert him if those guys show up again. You have a good crew there. They'll do the right thing."

He twirled the handset between his palms. "I should call and make sure everything's under control."

"Even you cannot be that stupid."

"Those people, the ones you said are ruthless, they were in my bar." 

"There's nothing you can do over the phone to change that. Everyone's okay, Hobs--"

"They blew up a house!" Hobson pointed at her with the phone, but Addie ducked her head into Toni's shoulder. He stopped and took a breath before he continued, a lot more quietly, "They tried to kill you and Rachel, they almost had Addie, and then they show up at my bar."

A wave of déjà-vu so strong it rocked her back on her heels swept through Toni. _Tried to kill you...almost had Addie..._ Something about that was important, something she'd tried to figure out earlier and hadn't had time for. If she could just catch up to it...

"And you, you expect me to sit here and act like nothing's--" Hobson broke off in mid-rant and stared at her. "What is it?"

She looked down at Addie, at the drool running down her little chin while she sucked on Toni's necklace chain. Back at Hobson. "You're a mob boss."

His eyebrows drew together. "No, I'm not."

She shifted Addie to the other hip. "I mean, just say you're a mob boss. Phillip Guyette or his second in command. Why do both?"

"Both what?"

"This morning, Hobson, keep up." He still looked completely baffled. "At the house. Why would they try to kill Rachel _and_ take Addie? If the bomb works, whether it kills Rachel or draws her out into the open where they can grab her, Rachel's not testifying. They don't need the kid."

"You told me they wanted her for insurance, in case the bomb didn't kill you guys."

"Maybe." But it felt like more. They'd deliberately planned to get to Addie's room. "A baby's a lot of work. Why would they go through so much trouble to get her?"

Hobson shrugged, finally noticed he still held the phone. "You got me." He put the handset back in its cradle. 

If she was right, there must be something about Addie that would help the case against Dennis Guyette, or keep it from getting to trial at all. But what could an eight-month-old have to do with a case against the mob? 

She needed to think, something she did better when she was moving--walking, running, working out, housecleaning. All things she couldn't do right now. Though the allergy attack had eased, she still felt the itching inside her ears that meant it could start up again any time--probably because of the cat hair all over Addie's sleeper. "I'd better give her a bath. It's been a few days." She'd forgotten baby wash and shampoo on her shopping spree, but she figured a rinse of water through the curls and a general sloughing off of cat dander was enough for right now.

She wasn't sure how Addie would react to a tub without toys, but she seemed happy enough to splash with her hands and a washcloth. Toni hovered one hand above her back when she crawled around in the tub; supported her when she pulled herself up to stand or whapped at the shiny silver fixtures, trying to get more water to come out. But no amount of water, and no amount of thinking it through with limited information, could solve the mystery of why Guyette's people wanted Addie alive. Or who had ratted Toni's location to them in the first place. She didn't think it was Winslow; flake or not, he knew she'd kill him. But there were at least four people other than him--Clyde Harris, Jeff Burkowski, Tyler Graves, and Eric Delano--who'd pulled shifts watching the house. She'd trusted her team, insisted it be CPD people--Paul was right. The feds, especially, would have a field day with this.

At this point, though, she couldn't control the rumors. All she could do was keep Addie safe and trust Paul to do the same with Rachel. "You'll bang your nose," she told Addie, who had discovered her warped reflection in the wide silver faucet and was trying to give herself a kiss. "Here, sit back down." She sang "Six Little Ducks," splashing along gently. Addie was a lot more enthusiastic, wailing on the water as if it were a drum, her tongue stuck out one side of her mouth. Toni laughed, and her laugh made Addie laugh. After the day they'd had, Toni figured they both deserved it.

"...Mama duck said _quack quack, quack_ \--crap!" She jumped when Hobson cleared his throat, just behind her. He stood leaning in the doorway, a faint smile playing over his face. "Oh, _what_?"

He shrugged. "You're good at this."

She was never sure if people who said that meant it as a compliment or some kind of veiled hint that she should have kids of her own. Except for her mother; Mom's hints were never veiled. "I told you, I've had a lot of practice. Between my family and a few years in WITSEC, I've spent a lot of time taking care of other people's kids."

"Huh." He rubbed at his chin. "You know what you were saying earlier, about them trying to kill you and take Addie away? You said you don't think it was insurance. So what would a bunch of politicians and mobsters--"

"Practically the same thing in this town," Toni muttered.

"--want with a baby? Does she have other family?"

"Well, yeah--grandparents, an aunt, two uncles, but they don't factor in. They don't even live in Chicago; they know nothing. Rachel's the only one who can testify now."

"Okay." Hobson grinned at Addie, who was playing peek-a-boo with a washcloth. Her version involved slapping the washcloth on her face, yanking it off, and yelling wordlessly. "Wait, what do you mean, 'now'?"

"Mike would have been on the witness list, if he'd lived." Toni dampened another washcloth and swirled it over Addie's head.

"But anything she told him would only be hearsay, right?" He shrugged at her raised eyebrows. "My ex-wife is a lawyer. You should have heard her break down television shows."

She went to work on the lint between Addie's toes, eliciting giggles. "Rachel had him come into the office with her one weekend to get information off the computers. Supposedly he transferred it all to their laptop, but--well, you heard her in the car. She doesn't want to believe Mike kept secrets from her, but she knows enough about Dennis Guyette's operation to believe there's more going on than what we can prove in court."

"Sure, but what's that got to do with Addie?"

She ran the washcloth over Addie's smooth back. "No, I...I don't know, it doesn't make sense." Addie shivered and grabbed the washcloth to suck on. Toni hit the drain and let the water run out. "Like almost everything that happened today." Including Hobson. She wrapped Addie in a towel.

"Here, let me." Hobson took Addie and held out a hand; Toni let him pull her to her feet. "You're nearly as wet as she is."

"I won't melt."

"What?"

She grabbed the damp hem of her shirt and gave it a shake. "It's what my nonna used to say when we didn't want to go out in the rain. 'You won't melt 'cause you aren't made of sugar.'"

He humphed in response. "Sounds like my mom." He stepped aside to let Toni out of the bathroom and ruffled Addie's wet hair before handing her off. "She'd love you, kiddo."

"Ba," Addie said.

Hobson watched--hovered, really, standing over the bed with his arms crossed, as if he would jump in if the whole operation went fubar--while Toni dried and dressed Addie in a blue and brown striped sleeper.

"The no-pink thing," he asked, "is that so people can't tell she's a girl?"

Toni shot him a smirk. "What, your daughter would have princess dresses and tutus?"

"I'll have you know my daughter would wear whatever she wanted, and she would know how to throw a curve ball before her first birthday. I wondered about the pink because Rachel seemed pretty adamant about it."

Rachel could be adamant about a lot of things. "She hasn't had control of very much in her life these past few months," Toni said, finishing up the sleeper's snaps. "Setting a few rules makes her feel better."

He plopped down on his bed. "You sound like Marissa."

"Psychological insight's part of my job." She stood Addie up, and the kid started giggling and kicking, like she was trying out for soccer. "Besides, she looks good in this."

"She looks good in everything," Hobson said. "I thought maybe you guys were trying to make people think she's a boy. Should we do that?"

"It might not hurt." Toni wrapped one of Addie's curls around her finger. "The hair might be a giveaway, though."

"And those eyelashes."

She shot him a look.

"What?"

"That's not just a little girl thing. You have lashes most women would kill for." She scored a direct hit; a blush crept up his cheeks and he didn't seem to know where to look. Lucky for him, Addie chose that moment to try to wriggle out of her grip. Toni put the pillows along the non-wall edge of the bed and stood up, giving Addie room to roll around while she fished in the drawer for the crackers and apples that would have to be dinner. "With Rachel, it's something to do with gender norms. Which means by the time she's three, this kid'll turn into a Pretty Little Princess wannabe."

Hobson chuckled at that. Or maybe at Addie; when Toni turned around, he was kneeling next to the bed, where Addie was doing bobbing push-ups on the pillows. He had his hands out, ready to catch her. "Yeah, as the Guyettes found out, kids have a way of turning out to be...not what you expect. I'm sure my mom would say the same thing."

Toni snorted. "Oh, yeah, Mr. Clean, you're a black sheep if there ever was one."

"You don't know my mom. She thought by now I'd be married and living a few blocks away from them in Hickory, so she'd be able to spoil the four grandchildren she expects."

She tossed him an apple and a packet of crackers; sat down on her bed and tugged Addie back from the edge. "I get that." Did she ever; despite her six nieces and nephews, she got peppered with questions about potential husbands and family plans every Christmas. "What about your dad?"

"My dad is--" He sat back and shook his head, then laughed again when Addie wagged her head, imitating him. "My dad's kinda unique. He always says he wants me to take over the family business, by which he means his hobbies, so he can leave all his toys to me. I think that's how he justifies buying them in the first place."

"Your dad's a toy collector?"

"No, I mean--tools and stuff, for woodworking and fishing. Oh, and curling."

"Curling?"

"Curling." He shifted on the floor, took a bite of the apple. "What about you? Were you allowed to wear pink, or were you some kind of tomboy?"

She shrugged. 

"You were, weren't you?"

"Just because I didn't dress like a Barbie doll--"

"I was thinking more of swinging from second story balcony to second story balcony." He took another bite. "And being a cop."

"That's more my family than anything else." She paused, listened to footsteps and chatter approach their door, then go past it and stop at the next room--not the room adjoining theirs, but the one on the other side of the wall the beds were pushed up against. The television came on almost immediately, which was probably for the best. Less chance of whoever it was making out anything she and Hobson said. Addie scooted over to play with Toni's apple.

"So," Hobson said, "your family made you into a tomboy?"

"Between my grandfathers, who were from Puerto Rico and Italy, and my dad and three brothers, I got an overdose of machismo. At least that's what my mom says. But it wasn't like I wanted to be a boy or anything. I just liked hanging out with my brothers." She opened up the cracker packet; Hobson watched, waiting for more. Might as well throw him a bone. They were less likely to fight if they avoided the most pressing questions at hand. "First time I got in trouble at school was because a bully picked on my baby brother Marcus. I took him on at recess."

"That was just the first time, huh?" His eyes did that crinkling-at-the-corners thing that drove her nuts. She popped a cracker into her mouth because damn, did she need something else to think about. "Did you win?"

She'd thrown a rock at Frankie Lemond and made his nose bleed, becoming, according to Sister Marchessa, the only second-grade girl in the history of St. Gertrude's Elementary to be given a week's detention. Frankie'd gotten off with a scolding. But she'd done what she'd set out to do. "He never bothered Marcus again. He did ask me out once, in high school."

Hobson draped his arms over his knees. "I'm guessing you said no."

"Frankie Lemond was a bully in grade school and in high school. Still is now, from what I've heard." Toni took the apple from Addie and rubbed it on her shirt. Marissa's shirt. Whatever. "Besides, I was looking for a different kind of guy. After Therese Brennan and I almost got kicked out of junior high for setting off firecrackers in the girls' bathroom, Nonna Sylvia told me I'd need to marry a cop if I was going to keep getting into trouble."

"Firecrackers, huh?" She waited for him to tell her she could have hurt herself, or burnt down the school, but instead of his usual overreaction he asked, "So you spent high school looking for future cops to date?"

"Not quite. _Mi abuelita_ , she told me I should become a cop and catch the bullies myself. I liked that idea a lot better. I gave up my life of crime and spent high school getting my grades up so I could go to college and get a degree in criminal justice." She watched him toy with his apple core in a futile attempt to hide his grin. "What?"

"Nothing. I just--" He looked up, and she realized they were sitting a little too close. Either that, or the air conditioner had stopped working. "Frankie Lemond had no idea what he was missing. I would have beaten him to the punch if I'd known you then."

She held his look for a half-second, then shook her head and got up to get Addie's food. "Guys like you didn't fall for girls like me."

"Course we did. You're pretty, and smart, and strong--"

"Yeah, well, two out of three." She pulled a jar of peas and a baby spoon out of the drawer and realized she'd forgotten to buy a bib. "Add in loud-mouthed and Gabe Brigatti's little sister, and it's three strikes, you're out." She grabbed the last clean washcloth from the bathroom and sat back down on the bed. Addie recognized the peas and rolled herself from the head of the bed, where she'd been banging on the wall, to Toni. 

Hobson was still watching her from the floor, as if the puppy dog droop to his face could convince her he would have given her the time of day in high school. She opened the peas and pulled Addie into her lap. "When Frankie asked me out, I _thought_ about it before I said no, because I hadn't had any other offers. I was sixteen and afraid he was the best I could hope for." 

"Aw, c'mon, Brigatti. Boys are--we're stupid. You probably intimidated them."

"Star jocks and student council presidents? Nope." She had a feeling he'd been both, though not at a preppy urban Catholic school. Small towns might be different, but not on one last point. "Besides, being something other than lily white meant most of them didn't even give me one strike, and that was true of the so-called nice guys as well as the party boys."

Apparently Hobson had no comeback for that; he looked down at his hands. 

She fed Addie a spoonful of peas. Addie, of course, wanted the spoon for herself; Hobson waited until Toni'd wrestled it free and reloaded, then stood up and stepped even closer. "Well, whatever it was, on behalf of guys like me, I would like to apologize. And to say sometimes we--we grow up and make better choices."

Toni let Addie have the spoon. "You do?" 

He leaned in a little closer. "Speaking solely for myself."

She was pretty sure he wanted to kiss her. She knew she wanted to kiss him. And she knew it would be one hell of a bad idea, because she was pretty sure neither one of them would want to stop at a kiss.

Addie must have known it, too; she chose that moment to yank the jar of peas out of Toni's hand. A spurt of green goop arced up and hit Hobson square in the face.

Toni had to catch her breath before she could laugh. Hobson swiped at the mess on his nose, his cheeks, his too-perfect eyelashes.

"Killjoy," he muttered, and stomped off to the bathroom.

~*~*~*~


	5. Chapter 5

Brigatti snored. 

Gary knew better than to say anything about it. Ever. That would just lead to her blaming him, again, for her allergic reaction to Cat. Truth was, she wasn't keeping him awake. Even without her snores and Addie's restless whimpers, he wouldn't have been able to sleep. Too many worries banging around his brain. 

It didn't matter how many times he counted the ways they'd covered their trail, or reached over to the car seat, perched between the beds on the desk chair, to reassure himself Addie was still strapped in tight, or told himself he absolutely could control himself around Brigatti, and the paper would show up in the morning. Every time he closed his eyes, the ache in his ankle and the too-hard bed reminded him of hitting the ground on his way into Shady Grove, and the past sixteen hours replayed themselves. It was as if the thin streak of yellow light that snuck in through a break in the curtains came from a projector, constantly rewinding and restarting the film of his roller coaster day.

He couldn't name anything he should have done differently. It was after midnight; the _Sun-Times_ was headed to press without Brigatti's obituary. So why did he feel like the Road Runner after someone hit the pause button on a VCR, frozen and waiting for the anvil to smash him?

And if Marissa was right, he thought as Brigatti let out another indelicate snort-wheeze, and everything happened for a reason, was the fact Brigatti couldn't even be in the same room as Cat some kind of warning not to tell her about the paper?

Or did it mean he shouldn't have anything to do with her at all?

The hell with that. If he wanted to have a relationship with Brigatti, it was the paper--and Cat--who would have to adjust. 

He flopped onto his side and punched the foam pillow, which did nothing to make it comfortable. What would happen in the morning when the paper came? What would it mean if it didn't? He was willing to do whatever the paper wanted, within reason, but his life would be a hell of a lot more reasonable if the damn thing would come right out and tell him what was going on and why.

Addie squirmed and pulled Fred's bill into her mouth, sucking on it in her sleep. Brigatti'd said she'd want a feeding sometime before one. If they were lucky, that would be the only time she'd wake up. There was a bottle ready on the nightstand, and Gary figured he might as well stay up until Addie was ready to eat. It wasn't as though he could relax at this point, anyway.

Twenty minutes later--twenty minutes of trying to figure out how he would make it through another day with Brigatti, a day with who knew how many stories in the paper he'd have to fix from the confines of this room, on little sleep and crappy hotel coffee--Addie woke herself up with her little "ah-heh, ah-heh" cry that meant she was mildly hungry. Once she decided she was truly starving, all hell would break loose.

"Hobson--bottle." Brigatti mumbled. 

"I got her. Go back to sleep."

He unstrapped Addie, hauling her, Fred, and her quilt onto his lap. She watched him as she drank the bottle, her eyes wide in the near-dark, as if she was afraid he'd vanish if she blinked. "It's okay," he promised. "Not going anywhere." She didn't close her eyes until the formula was nearly gone, and they popped right open the instant he tried to wrangle her back into the car seat. She arched her back and scrunched up her face for what was sure to be an epic yowl.

"Okay, no car seat." Not until she was sound asleep, anyway. He slouched back against the headboard and cuddled her into his shoulder, with Fred pressed between them. He meant to hold her and pat her back just until she went limp, but the warm weight of her against his chest was more soothing than one of Crumb's hot toddies. By the time he put her back in her makeshift bed, he was drowsy enough to drift off.

He woke up less than an hour later, when the couple on the other side of the wall came back to their room from wherever they'd gone for the evening. At least, he guessed it was a couple. Could have been a threesome, or hell, a whole orgy, from the noise they made getting into bed. And then...well, definitely not _sleeping_ in the bed. 

No, they were having fun. The kind of fun Gary hadn't had in way too long. Not that he hadn't thought about it now and then. Every time Brigatti was around, for example. He smashed a pillow over his ears to block the noise and hoped-- _really_ hoped--she wasn't lying awake a few feet away, pretending as hard as he was that she couldn't hear their neighbors. 

But she'd stopped snoring.

He should have said something to brush it off so they could both laugh about it, but he couldn't think of anything that didn't sound suggestive, stupid, or both. Maybe Brigatti was asleep enough that she thought she was dreaming. Maybe she didn't realize he was awake.

Fat chance of that. She was a detective, after all.

For a couple of people--or a threesome or an orgy--who'd sounded pretty damn drunk when they stumbled in, they had a lot of stamina. Gary might have admired it if he hadn't had to hear every giggle, every grunt, every squeak, every moan. He was actually grateful when Addie woke up screaming at two-thirty. He got her out of the car seat, carrying her one-armed to the desk, where he groped around for a clean diaper and put another bottle together. "Quite the cycle you got going here, kid," he whispered, bouncing her to get her to calm down. 

"Thought we were taking turns," Brigatti muttered. 

His ears got hot, and he hoped she couldn't see anything more than shadows. She'd claimed not to be bothered by him sleeping in boxers and a t-shirt--"I'm a cop with three brothers," she'd snorted--but now he wondered if he should have worn his jeans, too.

"Don't worry about it," he said, wishing his voice could drown out the sounds coming from right behind Brigatti's head. "You're the brains of this operation. You need sleep more than I do."

Still, he was pretty sure she watched him change the diaper, make up the formula, and settle in to feed Addie. He knocked his head against the wall a couple of times. After a shocked silence the couple got quieter, though not, from the sounds of things, any less active.

Once again, Addie watched him while she ate. "I'm not explaining this one, kiddo." She sniffled and grabbed his t-shirt, pulling herself as close against him as she could. He meant to put her back in the car seat, he really did, but every time he shifted, she snuggled a little closer. He'd just close his eyes for a few minutes, long enough to work up the energy to move.

He woke to a strong slant of sunlight stabbing his left eye. He lay on his stomach, his cheek smashed against the empty bottle.

"Addie?" He shot up and out of bed on the far side, stumbled into the curtain, and banged his shoulder on the sliding glass door. Had she rolled onto the floor? Had he smothered her? He tore the blanket off the bed. "Addie!"

"Hobson."

He looked up. Brigatti held Addie on her lap, letting the kid chew on a strap of her tank top. Addie gurgled and grinned, as if his panicked search was the funniest show ever. Brigatti, who looked as sleep-deprived as he felt, grunted, "She's fine."

Gary dropped back onto his bed. "I thought--"

"Same thing I did, when I stuck my hand in her car seat and got nothing?"

"Sorry. Seemed like she wanted to be held."

"She probably did. But then she decided to wake up, and I figured you didn't want her eating your hair."

He scrubbed at his face. "What time is it?"

"Same time she always gets up. Six-thirty." Brigatti lifted Addie and let her kick and squeal at the air for a bit. "Better than an alarm clock, aren't you, chica?"

The paper could come any minute. Gary tried to look at the door without looking as if he was looking at the door. "You, uh...you're not feeling sneezy or anything, are you?"

Her eyes narrowed. "Should I be?"

"No, I just wanted to make sure you're feeling better, since last night--uh--" Better clarify; he didn't want to remind her of the noise that had interrupted their sleep. "--you know, since the cat showed up yesterday. But if you're not sneezing, it's good." He rubbed the back of his neck. "It's good," he repeated, half to himself. Too bad he didn't believe it. "If you're okay with her, I'm going to take a shower."

Brigatti bounced Addie on her toes. "We really wish you would, don't we, bug?" Addie stuck out her tongue.

For once, Gary made his morning shower last. Why not, when the day still stretched ahead of him with no running around the city, no paperwork, no kitchen prep or bartending--just taking care of an eight-month-old. Granted, she was a handful, but he didn't know if he could stay in the tiny hotel room all day.

When his fingers started to wrinkle, he stepped out of the shower and toweled off in the steamy little room. He didn't realize he had company until he felt something warm and fuzzy rub his ankles while he was drying his hair.

"What are you doing here, furball? Brigatti'll kill me if she sees you."

Cat meowed and rubbed his leg again, right where he'd scratched it yesterday. Gary picked him up. "You know that doesn't make up for it, right? That really hurt. And it wasn't fair, trying to get me to choose."

Cat blinked. 

"How about if it's really important, you stick it in the paper and then make sure I have that paper when I need it?"

Brigatti knocked on the door. "Hobson, what's going on?"

Shit. He dumped the cat in the tub, drew the shower curtain, wrapped the towel around himself, and cracked the door. "What's that?"

"Who are you talking to?" She had that slightly disgusted 'you-are-so-weird' look on her face again.

"Oh, that." He reached up to scratch the back of his head, realized the towel was about to fall, and grabbed it--much to Brigatti's--well, what? Did she like what she'd seen? He was hidden by the door and the steam, mostly, but her eyes widened. And then her nose wrinkled, like she was about to sneeze.

"I was, uh, rehearsing. I did some local theatre this spring, and I was thinking of auditioning again, and I, uh, I like to run my lines in the shower."

"Okay." Her tone implied it was anything but okay--anything but believable. "If you're almost done with your beauty routine, I have to check in with Paul, and Addie needs a diaper change."

"Yeah, sure, be out in a sec."

She nodded and took a step back so he could shut the door. "Auditioning," he muttered under his breath, and could have sworn he heard Brigatti say the same thing on the other side.

He hauled the shower curtain open and turned his voice down to a whisper. "You have to get out of here, but we'll wait until she goes downstairs and--wait. Why are you here at all?"

Cat jumped out of the tub and onto the toilet. 

"Look, buddy, I can't read your mind." 

Cat leaped again, this time onto the vanity, and there, balanced atop the sample soaps and shampoos, where it most certainly had not been before Brigatti had knocked, was the _Sun-Times_.

The next day's _Sun-Times_.

So much for being bored.

~*~*~*~

"Jury selection starts today," Paul said. "If it goes quick, we'll have a day of that and a day of opening arguments, and then she'll be one of the first witnesses called."

So a minimum of four more days with Hobson--probably more, given the way the court system worked. Toni scowled at the pay phone. Four more days meant three more nights, and she wasn't sure she could take even one more like last night.

"Once she's done," Paul went on, "we can reunite the family, but they'll be under witness protection until the trial's over." And possibly for years after, especially if they couldn't pin down Phillip Guyette's second in command. The mob believed in revenge.

"There's a chance they can introduce more charges based on what happened at the safe house yesterday. Forensics are still preliminary, but it wasn't a gas leak. They found remnants of a device, and they're working to see if it matches any signatures."

"When was it planted?"

"No way to tell, at least not yet."

"And what's the going theory?" There were always theories at the station.

"Scuttlebutt says it was an inside job. It's the only way anyone could have known where you were."

"Yeah, but who?" 

There was a moment of hesitation before he said, "Your team were the only ones who knew the address. They've all been put on desk duty, but so far there's no sign any one of them has a link to Dennis Guyette. Feds are pushing pretty hard to get you pulled off the case, too."

"What, they think I'm the leak?"

He didn't laugh. 

"You've got to be kidding me."

"You know how they are." His voice had a strained quality, his nasal blockage more pronounced than usual. "They'll run theories out both sides of their mouths until something plausible sticks. They can't find Phillip's second, so they're looking for somewhere else to lay all the blame. Banks won't let it happen."

"He's city, not federal. They won't listen to him."

"When have you ever let what someone else thinks stop you from doing your job?"

"I seem to remember you kicking me off a task force--"

"I was wrong, okay? You sound like you need coffee," he said in a tone that was half as condescending as anyone else on the force would have used and twice as condescending as he thought it was. "Your friend there making life rough?"

"He talks to himself in the shower." And answered the door in a towel, but she wasn't telling Paul that part. It was a little too much to even think about after last night's interrupted sleep.

"That's the least of his weirdness. If it helps, I have a lead on a new place for you. It'll take a day or so to get it ready, but it'll be a lot better than wherever you are now."

"Okay, thanks." Much as she wanted to keep him on the line, to milk every drop of information that might help her figure out what was going on with this case and who the leak could be, the ticking clock in her head was running down. "Talk to you this afternoon."

After they said their good-byes, Toni grabbed food at random from the hotel's free breakfast spread. And coffee. No matter how much Paul's little jab grated, there was nothing random about coffee.

Back in the room, Hobson had Addie changed and had managed to put on clothes himself. Addie was crawling around on the floor that had seemed like such a problem to him the day before. He let Toni in and went back to reading the newspaper while pacing, stepping over Addie without ever seeming to actually see her. 

Toni ducked around him and set her tray on the desk. "What, bad news?" She reached for the paper as he passed her, but he snatched it away. "Or are you hiding your audition notices?"

"No, no, I--" He stopped in front of the balcony door, rolled up the paper, and stuck it in his back pocket, a considerable feat, given the tightness of his jeans. He rubbed his hands together. "Look, there's breakfast down there in the lobby, right? I thought I'd go get something to eat."

"I brought some up for you." She waved a hand at the tray, and he blinked at it, then frowned. "Coffee and pastries and fruit. They even had oatmeal for Addie, but there's more than enough here if you want--"

"Toast." He sidled past her and hopped over Addie, who sat banging the ice bucket lid on the floor. "I need toast."

She lifted the napkin that covered a plate of toast. "I have that, too."

"Yes, I see that, but I'm very particular about my toast. I can't eat it if it isn't just right."

"Geez, Hobson, your mom still cut the crusts off your peanut butter sandwiches?"

He ran a hand through his hair, then held it out, pleading. "Look, I haven't been out of this room since we checked in. Could you maybe trust me to walk down a flight of stairs and make myself some toast without endangering myself or either one of you?"

She looked from him to Addie and back. She completely understood, and the hotel guests she'd seen had moved pretty quickly through the breakfast buffet. Anyone who'd noticed her was probably gone by now. "Toast."

"Please."

"Okay, fine. But if anyone follows you up here--"

"If anyone follows me, I'll leave the hotel."

"Don't do that." Oh, hell, she hadn't meant that to come out so quick or so...well, desperate. She picked up the bowl of oatmeal, just to have somewhere else to look.

"Why not?"

"They'll call the cops on you for stealing their breakfast. Last thing I need is a pack of Schaumburg LEOs getting in the middle of this."

"I won't be followed. I just want toast."

She waved at the door with a spoon. "Hurry up. I want to take a shower."

~*~*~*~

"McGinty's."

Gary turned toward the pay phone so no one eating breakfast in the lobby could get a good look at him. Of course, that also put him face-to-face with Cat, who'd somehow managed to make it to the pay phone unnoticed after Gary dumped him into the adjoining room. "Hey. You free to talk?"

"Yes, no, I--" Marissa stumbled, then recovered. "I mean yes, but those invoices are in the office. Let me switch phones and we can discuss delivery." The phone clicked over to hold. Cat sat squished into the tiny space, pawing at the rolled up paper Gary tapped on the cubicle shelf.

"Are you okay?" Marissa asked as soon as she picked up again. "All of you?"

"We're fine. What about you?"

"Better today, especially now. You heard about our visitors yesterday?"

"They just asked questions, right?"

"Right. It was two men who said they were selling some new microbrew. They had a business card and samples, but they insisted on talking to you even though I told them we're partners." The note of annoyance in her voice told him how well she'd responded to that. 

"It's not the first time that's happened."

"No, but even though they were selling their own beer, they drank a couple of ours and asked way too many questions about the bar and about you, and the whole time Cat was right underfoot. He only does that when he's worried, so I called Detective Armstrong as soon as they left."

Gary gave Cat a scratch behind the ears. "You did the right thing. Did they get into the office or behind the bar or anything?"

"Of course not. I told the staff you're sick and can't be disturbed, so the office and your loft are off limits. The thing is--" She took a deep breath, and he pictured her twisting the phone cord in her fingers, like she always did when she was nervous. "--they weren't the only odd customers yesterday."

"Wait a minute, what?" Cat pawed at the phone, as if Gary needed an alert to know this was important. "I didn't hear about anyone else showing up."

"That's because Detective Armstrong doesn't know." Her voice wound tighter. "He might, if he sent them, which they said he did, and I believed them at first. It was only after a while that I started to wonder, because of Cat, but Crumb said they were cops--"

"Whoa, Marissa, you have to start at the beginning on this one."

"Right." She let out a little sigh. "A few hours after I called Detective Armstrong, three men who said they were cops came into the bar. They said Armstrong had sent them to make sure nobody else bothered us. They sat at our best table all night drinking coffee."

"Makes sense, if they were on duty."

"Or if they were making a good show of it. I don't know, Gary, something about them was...off. They wouldn't even make small talk with me. The bartenders said they watched everyone who came in and out, and every once in a while one of them would step outside with a cell phone. Cat came back about nine and followed me around again, so I called Crumb."

"How much did you tell him?"

"Just that you were with Toni and that you guys needed to not be found, that Armstrong was our contact, and that I wasn't sure about those guys. He came by and talked to them, told me they really were cops, so I figured it was okay, but all night I couldn't stop worrying there was something wrong. I don't know why I trust Cat over cops that Armstrong supposedly sent or Crumb's background checks, but--"

"Armstrong and Crumb may not know what Cat knows," Gary finished, while Cat nudged his hand. Better not think too hard about what he'd just said. "This whole thing is a mess, and I don't think even Brigatti knows who all to trust, but she trusts Armstrong, so I'm sure you can, too. I'll make sure he sent them, okay?" How he would do that without letting Brigatti know he'd broken protocol was another problem altogether.

"Look, Gary, I listened to the news last night, not just about the fire, but all of what's going on in Chicago this week. There's that big trial coming up..." She paused, and he knew she was waiting for confirmation. He wasn't sure if his promises to Brigatti covered giving Marissa's guesses a thumbs-up, so he kept quiet. "I have a pretty good idea who you're dealing with," she finally said, "and it scares me."

"We'll be all right. I just don't want this backfiring on you."

"It won't. Crumb's already here. He says he wants to work a few shifts this week and earn some extra cash, but he isn't fooling anyone. Or at least not me."

Gary had a feeling Crumb had watched the news, too, or heard something via the cop grapevine. For all he claimed not to want to know, Crumb was way too sharp not to put the pieces together. "You may not get rid of him until this whole thing is over."

"I'm okay with that."

"Me, too." Cat nosed the paper. "Especially since I need your help with some things today."

Marissa's voice dropped to a conspiratorial low. "The paper came?"

"Yeah, and there's no way I can get to a couple of these stories. You know the Kinzie Chophouse?"

"It's a few blocks from here."

"Right." Gary turned to the story in the Metro section to make sure he had the facts straight. "At lunch today, there's going to be a fight over a tip--I mean, there's not going to be a tip, so the waiter chases down a guy named Donald Palmer and punches him, and that starts a bigger fight out on the street. But you don't have to get involved. You can--"

"--tell Mr. Palmer to leave the tip?"

"That'd be good, yeah. He's leaving the restaurant at eleven-forty, so you want to get there at least fifteen minutes before that. And then over at Saint Jerome's, a kid in the summer program's going to fall off the top of the slide during afternoon recess. The playground's fenced in, but if you say something to one of the teachers, you know, just call out and get someone to talk to you, I think you can stop the accident."

"I'll figure it out. What time?"

"One-thirty. Maybe you should take Crumb with you."

"I'll be fine. I have Reilly, I'll take a taxi, don't worry."

"Okay, but if anyone follows you--" How would she know if anyone followed her? Suddenly this didn't seem like the best idea, but he didn't know what else to do.

"It'll be one less person to find you, as long as you really stay away and let me handle it."

She sounded a little too eager. But she knew her way around the neighborhood, she'd heard his stories of dealing with the paper for years now, and Cat was placidly licking his paws. Had to be a sign. Besides, if he knew Crumb, there would be at least one friendly person trailing Marissa no matter where she went. "Okay, thanks."

"I'm happy to do it, Gary, but really--" There was another moment of cord-twisting hesitation. "Look, I think you should tell Toni about the paper."

"No, Marissa--"

"You don't need the extra stress of trying to keep it from her, especially not right now," she said quickly. "And there might be information in there she needs to know. Don't underestimate her ability to handle it."

Gary and Cat stared at each other while he took that in, especially the last part, which was at least as much about Marissa as it was about Brigatti. "What if she doesn't want to know?"

"You know what, Gary? That paper is a part of you--in a lot of ways, it's the biggest part of you. And Toni wants to know you. You'll never get past a handful of interrupted first dates with her if you don't--"

"Okay, okay, I get it," he said, because he really didn't want to hear the rest. "There hasn't been a good time."

"Be on the lookout for one. I'll take care of those stories."

"Thanks. Be careful."

"You too."

Once he'd hung up, Gary shooed Cat off the phone cubicle. Cat made one pass around Gary's ankle and trotted down a hallway toward a door marked "Housekeeping." That'd go well. 

He was halfway to the room before he remembered the toast and had to go back for it. There were a dozen kids--or maybe half a dozen who moved a lot--sugaring up on donuts and Fruity Rings while their parents sucked down coffee. One of them, a little boy who looked about kindergarten age, tugged on the hem of Gary's shirt. 

"What d'ya need, bud?" 

The kid sucked a dangling line of snot back into his nose and held up four fingers. "Red jelly." 

"You got it." Gary handed him four tiny cartons of strawberry jelly and a napkin. "Wipe your face while you're at it."

"Wipe your own face!" With a laugh that was snotty in more ways than one, the boy threw the napkin back at Gary and ran over to a table where his mom, oblivious, chatted away on a cell phone. 

"Never get a girlfriend with an attitude like that," Gary muttered as he slathered butter on his toast. No way would he let a kid like that date Addie. "You'll grow up to be another Frankie Lemond." 

He thought about the Frankie Lemonds of the world on his way to the room--guys who wasted their chances with great girls--and women--because they overestimated themselves and underestimated the girls. Even the ones who could take them in a fight. He wasn't a Frankie Lemond, no matter what Marissa had implied. But sooner or later, he'd have to prove it by telling Brigatti about the paper. He just had to find a time when she wasn't preoccupied with a case, or pissed at him about something completely inconsequential, or looking at him like she wanted there to be more between them than endless rounds of almost-but-not-quite, if he would only settle down and be normal or predictable or whatever it was he was supposed to be.

Which could mean the right time was never. Or it could be right now.

Now or later, he had to tell her something. He wasn't comfortable with the idea of a bunch of guys, good or bad, keeping his bar under surveillance, and he wanted to know what she made of the whole thing.

"Must have been quite a line for the toaster," she said when he got back to the room. She sat at the desk, holding a squirming, chatty Addie in her lap and feeding her oatmeal. Either that, or they were going for some kind of modern art project: _Baby, Decorated with Breakfast_.

"Yeah, well, I had to adjust the settings a couple of times before I got it right." He took a bite of the toast--to prove he'd really wanted it, and to give himself a second to gather up his courage--then set the plate on top of the television. "Look, Brigatti--"

"Gababbabba-oo!" Addie punctuated whatever she was saying with a slap on the desk, sloshing coffee and oatmeal all over the place. Brigatti didn't have enough napkins to mop up the mess, so Gary brought her a towel. By the time they had it cleaned up, he'd rethought telling her anything. If he told her about the sketchy cops at McGinty's, he'd have to tell her he'd called Marissa, which would piss her off, and how the hell could he justify it without telling her about the paper?

Crumb was at the bar, and nobody'd done anything but ask questions. Like Marissa had said, if the people who were looking for Addie and Brigatti were preoccupied at McGinty's, they were one step further away from tracking them down. And if anything was about to go really wrong, the paper would warn him.

"What were you going to tell me?" Brigatti wiped the last of the oatmeal off Addie's chin and blew a stray strand of hair out of her own eyes.

"I, uh, was going to ask if you want to take a shower." 

"Yeah." She handed Addie off with a look that said she knew there was something he wasn't saying--but no way could she know what that was. "I'll just be a few minutes."

"Take your time," Gary called as she shut the bathroom door. He held Addie up in the air and let her kick and squeal while he pretended to fly her around the room. "Next time you're eating, remind me not to try to tell her anything. Or do anything," he added, remembering yesterday evening's fiasco with the peas. "Too much mess--ow, that's my head!" He untangled Addie's fingers from his hair and brought her down to eye level. "You sure you're not related to my cat?"

~*~*~*~

By midafternoon, Hobson had dialed down the weird, but dialed up the whining.

"C'mon, Brigatti, let's get out of here for a while." He paced the length of the room with Addie, who, despite Fred, despite backrubs, despite a full bottle a few minutes ago, showed no signs of settling down for a nap. She kicked against Hobson's gut and drummed Fred on his shoulder. Stopping at the desk, he held up the hotel's information folder. "There's a playground and a kiddie pool in that courtyard out back. We've got our cover story, right?"

She knew all about the playground; they'd both read the folder cover to cover. Hobson had read his paper at least three times as well, but he refused to share it, so Toni figured she'd won the Boredom Olympics. She should have been used to it; detective work, the real thing, was mostly paperwork and getting to the bottom of a truckload of BS, interrupted by occasional manhunts and even rarer shootouts. Real, honest-to-God mysteries--like, say, Hobson--were mostly solved by observing and sifting through details.

The problem with that was, she was trapped in a hotel room without any new details to work through. The most work she'd been able to do was to write down a list of possible leaks, which was nothing more than a list of the people she was sure knew about the protection detail. It was a list she could do absolutely nothing about, other than making it. To top it all off, the sounds of carts and voices carrying from the far end of the hall meant Housekeeping would show up any moment--probably just about the time they got Addie down for her nap.

"If Guyette's people know where we are, wouldn't they have shown up by now?" Hobson blew a raspberry at Addie, then, when she did the same, turned her around to face Toni. Addie blew spit out of her mouth with wide eyes, as though she were practicing a vital life skill. "C'mon, Nia, let's show our daughter a good time."

"Fine," Toni said, "but only long enough to wear her out, and if anyone who even smells like the mob shows up--"

"They won't," he said, as if he were the expert. He was out the door by the time she'd tucked her gun into the waistband of her jeans and pulled her t-shirt over it. She had to hustle down the hall to catch up with them. 

Addie perked up the minute she got outside, babbling and smiling while Hobson--without so much as a pause to scan the gated play area for anyone who might be trouble--buckled her into a baby swing and gave her a push.

Toni nodded at a mom who sat in one of the lawn chairs by the pool watching her kids, both preschool size, splash around. She walked the perimeter of the play area, noting the lack of any gate--it was only accessible from inside the hotel--and the trees that kept the area out of sight from all but a handful of parking places, which were unoccupied. The day was hot, but a breeze had chased off the humidity, and she found herself grinning at Addie's squeals of delight when she came back around to the playset. 

She stood in front of the swing, tweaking Addie's toes when she arced close enough. Hobson watched her for a bit, then grabbed the swing and held it. "Say it. Say I was right."

Addie kicked at the swing, trying to make it go, but Toni crossed her arms. "Right about what?"

"We all needed this." The corners of his eyes crinkled, and damn him, she couldn't keep a straight face. He gave the swing a little twist. "Tell her to say it, Addie. Gar--" He broke off with a glance at the pool. "Uh, Daddy was right."

She rolled her eyes. "What do you want, a genius grant? Come on, let the kid swing." Addie loved the swing. And the slide, even though Hobson never once let go of her. And the top of the climbing tower, especially when Toni climbed up with her. She giggled and blew raspberries and tried to clap, and showed absolutely no sign of being sleepy. 

"Just wait," Toni told Hobson. "When she hits the wall, it'll get ugly."

"Listen to what she's saying about you." Hobson lifted Addie off the tower and held out a hand for Toni. She ignored it and jumped off on her own. "You're not ugly, are you? You're--whoa!"

Addie had spotted the pool and lunged for it. She let out a screech that set Toni's teeth on edge. "I think she wants the water," Toni said.

"No kidding. What are you, a fish?" he asked Addie. 

The pool was a ten-foot square, less than a foot deep, with little jets at the corners to keep the water from going stagnant. The preschoolers were still there, pouring buckets of water on each other. Their mom had her nose in a copy of _People_ , and while Toni normally only read that kind of thing at the hairdresser, she envied the woman for having any reading material at all. 

While Hobson took off his shoes and rolled up his jeans, Toni plopped down in the lawn chair next to the mom--the only other chair available--and pulled off Addie's yellow shorts, leaving her in a short-sleeved onesie. Hobson held out his hands. "All right, kiddo, let's go."

"You put sunblock on her in the room, right?" 

Toni looked over, but the woman next to her was talking to Hobson, not her. She leaned toward him, all summery and suburban in her white shorts, navy-striped tank top, and straight-from-the-bottle blonde ponytail. 

"Uh, no," he said, typically eloquent. He kicked his shoes under Toni's chair.

"Here." The woman reached across Toni to offer him a bottle--a pink bottle--of baby sunscreen. "I'm Susan, by the way."

"I'll get it, honey." Toni took the bottle out of the woman's hand and jumped up to slather the stuff on Addie. Sure, they needed it, and it was nice of her to share, but what the hell was with treating her like the Invisible Woman?

"Thanks," Hobson told the woman, trying to hold onto a squirming Addie while Toni rubbed sunscreen on her limbs and the back of her neck. "I'm Greg."

"Yeah you are," Susan cooed. Toni would have gagged, if she hadn't been too busy trying to figure out what the hell that meant.

"We appreciate this," Hobson said. 

"Speak for yourself," Toni muttered so only he could hear.

"It doesn't matter how tan they are, they can all burn," Susan said condescendingly. "I thought all mothers knew that."

Toni didn't trust herself to come up with a civil response. She bit her lip and motioned for Hobson to turn Addie around so she could smooth the stuff over her nose and cheeks.

"It's my fault," Hobson said. "I was supposed to get the sunblock. My wife here, Nia, she has a stressful job, and the baby's stuff is my responsibility."

"She's good to go," Toni told Hobson. She handed the bottle back to Susan with a saccharine, "Thanks so much."

Susan took the bottle without even glancing at Toni. "She's such a cutie, I'd hate to see her--" There was a loud splash and wail from the pool. "Brian Matthew, don't sit on your brother!" She rushed over to the pool to pull one boy off the other. 

"Stressful, huh?" Toni asked Hobson.

"Yeah." Was that a wink? "It's why you have a hard time decompressing."

He took Addie to the opposite end of the pool from the boys, holding her under the arms and dangling her toes in the water while she kicked and burbled. Toni sat down to take her shoes off, but she got caught up in watching him swoop Addie along the surface of the water. He might be an only child, but taking care of a baby seemed to come to him fairly easily. With any other guy--a guy like Winslow, for example, or Hobson's friend Fishman--she might have suspected it was because he was almost as immature as the kid, but she knew for a fact that wasn't true of Hobson. She'd seen him step up in some pretty dire situations, and whatever his secret was, however he knew about things that were going to happen, it was a huge responsibility and he hadn't run away from it. 

Which was why it was kind of appealing--albeit a guilty pleasure--to watch him when the burden had lifted a little bit, like it had in this moment. It was definitely better than reading _People_.

She slipped off her shoes and socks and rolled her jeans up to mid-calf, but before she could join Hobson and Addie, one of Susan's boys ran to their end of the pool and Susan followed right behind. She said something to Hobson that made him look away from Addie. The genuine grin on his face faded, replaced by something a lot more stiff and phony. Susan didn't seem to notice. She prattled on while her kids splashed around them. When Hobson shot a pleading look her way, Toni sat back in her chair, arms crossed. Amber had been an interesting challenge, but Susan was hardly a worthy opponent. More like a desperate one. Toni might have felt sorry for Susan, if her flirting hadn't been so blatant, and if Toni hadn't been married to the guy with whom Susan was flirting.

Okay, _pretending_ to be married. Susan didn't know the difference.

She timed it on her watch; Hobson lasted exactly six and three-quarters minutes before he called, "Hon? I think the baby wants you to come play." Not bad, even though his face was so red by then she was beginning to wonder if he was the one who needed sunscreen. 

"...and their father gets them every other weekend," Susan was saying when Toni got close enough to hear. A few feet away, her boys played tug-of-war with a plastic shovel. "At first I couldn't bear to let them go, but now I kind of enjoy a little quiet adult time, you know? Just me and a bottle of merlot. Not that I would mind another adult there, of course."

"Sounds, uh--hey, honey!" Relief washed over Hobson's face. Addie bent over his arm, reaching toward the water. "I was wondering if you think it's okay to let her sit in the water. She seems to want to be down there."

"Of course!" Toni clapped her hands and held them out for Addie. "We don't have a swim diaper, so this one will probably blow up like a balloon, but it won't be a problem as long as she doesn't--well, you know." She took Addie, brushed a kiss across Hobson's cheek, and turned a bright smile on Susan. "You don't mind, do you? The water's chlorinated anyway." Before Susan could answer, she sat down on the edge of the pool and plopped Addie in, much to Addie's delight. Toni got her face down close to hers, making exaggerated grimaces at Addie's splashes--along with a smile she didn't bother to hide when Susan called, "Boys! Naptime!" They were back in the building in two minutes flat. 

Hobson eased himself down to sit next to her. "You know, I didn't ask her to flirt with me."

Toni held Addie under the arms and helped her stand, but Addie bent over and dipped her face in the water--once, twice, three times, like one of those glass bird knick-knacks. "You never do, do you?"

He shot her a shit-eating grin. "Jealous?"

"Hardly. And you don't get to play it cool now. I saw you squirming, hon. Did you get her address so you could share that bottle of merlot?"

"I wouldn't--"

"Who comes on to another woman's husband in plain view of his wife?"

Hobson glanced in the direction Susan had gone. "She's not evil. Just lonesome. It can happen when couples break up."

Toni blinked at another splash. She tended to forget Hobson had been married before; unlike Susan, he didn't wear his divorce like some kind of wound. "Yeah, well, cure the lonely hearts club on your own time, okay?"

"I've got no interest in curing her anything." He nudged her shoulder, like--like what? What the hell did that mean? Before she could figure it out, Addie put her face in the water again and went farther than before; she came up sputtering, her lower lip jutting out and her face screwed up.

"Uh-oh," Hobson said. He took her, ballooned diaper, dripping onesie, and all, and stood. Addie opened her mouth, and he raised his voice over the ensuing wail. "Sounds like nap time."

"Yeah." Toni got to her feet, brushing at her damp shirt. "And I should check in with Paul." She handed him a room key. "Meet you upstairs."

She rolled down her jeans--which were just as wet as her shirt, her hair, and well, all of her--and slipped on her shoes before she pushed open the door to the lobby and crossed it to get to the phone. It seemed like a fairly dead time for the hotel; no one checking in, no noises from the Housekeeping offices around the corner. Even the desk clerk, the same kid who'd been there when she checked in the day before, was absorbed in some hand-held electronic game and didn't seem to notice her.

Paul didn't pick up. Probably somewhere he couldn't talk. She ran a finger along the shelf below the phone while she waited for the system to click over to voice mail, then, when she hit a pile of dust and assorted grossness, wished she hadn't. She held up her fingers and started to shake off the dust and--what the hell was that? 

"Just checking in," she started automatically when the beep sounded. "Everything's the same here." Except there were bits of hair on her finger. Very short. Very straight. Very orange. "Hope you're all okay, and I really hope the---the--" She let out a sneeze. "Sorry. The place we talked about, hope it's set up soon. I'll try you again in an hour or so." 

She hung up and stared at her finger. Cat hair. Hair from Hobson's cat. By the phone he wasn't supposed to use. 

She didn't even check to see if the clerk looked her way as she marched past his desk. "Toast. Right." _Hobson_ was about to be toast. 

"Shhh," he said when she walked in. He had Addie up against his shoulder. She was dressed in the last of her clean sleepers and had one arm curled around Fred; the other hung limp as a noodle. "She's almost asleep."

Toni could do quiet. Winslow could have warned Hobson she was scarier quiet than she was when she yelled. She rubbed at her itchy nose, got close enough to brush her hand over Addie's head, then fixed Hobson with a cold, steady look. "When you went to get your toast this morning, did you do anything I told you not to do?"

His eyes went wide, but she was too close for him to look away. "No."

"You didn't make a phone call?"

"W-what makes you ask that?"

She would only hate him more if she kept giving him openings to lie. She held up the hair she'd carried all the way upstairs. "I found cat hair--orange cat hair--on the pay phone."

At that, he stepped back, and she let him. He put one hand over Addie's head. Toni couldn't tell if he was protecting her or trying to keep her from waking up. "It was an emergency--"

She struggled to keep her voice a whisper. "An emergency you couldn't tell me about?"

"I didn't need to tell you about it, it was--you know, a bar emergency." He made a valiant effort to look her in the eye, but his gaze skipped over her forehead, her chin, and then landed just over her right ear. "I remembered there are some taxes--a bill--a tax bill--and it had to go in the mail today."

Toni didn't dignify that with a response; she stared him down, waiting.

"I only talked to Marissa," he said, his voice going a little whiny, "and she didn't let anyone know it was me, but listen, while we're talking about this--"

"Hobson!" she finally exploded. "Do you have any idea how much trouble you may have caused with that call?"

"I had to, Brigatti, the--" he broke off as Addie squirmed and let out a whimper.

"Tax bill?" Toni filled in drily. 

Hobson's jaw worked, but his bug-eyed stare relaxed into a more natural--more truthful--look. "Okay, so it wasn't a tax. Or a bill." He backed up to the desk and buckled Addie in her car seat with Fred. He looked over at the beds, like maybe he wanted to sit down, but she crossed her arms. 

"I called because--well, you know that secret I have, that way of knowing what's going to happen? I knew a couple things that were going to happen back in that part of town, and I asked her to help me with them. That's all."

"No."

His brow furrowed. "No, what?"

"No, I _don't_ know your big secret." Which was why they always ended up in exactly this fight. She sighed. "What 'things' were going to happen?"

He looked down, scratched the back of his head. "A fight outside a restaurant and a kid with head trauma. I couldn't stop the fight or the accident from here, so I called Marissa and asked her to do it."

She couldn't tell if he was confusing her on purpose, trying to deflect her attention away from the big question he refused to answer, or if he really thought he was telling her what she wanted to know. "What the hell, Hobson?"

He stared at her for a long moment. Ran a flat hand across his forehead and down the side of his face. "You know what, Marissa's right. It's easier if I--here." He reached for his back pocket, but his face went slack. "Oh."

"It's easier if you what?"

"I need--I mean, I--shoes!" He held up a bare foot. The wet hem of his jeans slapped against his ankle. "I left my shoes down by the pool. I should get them before anyone takes them."

She was between him and the door, and she wasn't moving. "What do your shoes have to do with you doing the one thing I told you not to do and then making up some ridiculous story about Marissa stopping fights and accidents?" Granted, those were exactly the kinds of activities that had swollen Hobson's police file to the thickness of a sofa cushion.

"Those happen to be very special shoes," he said earnestly. He took a step closer to her. "They helped me save--" He glanced down at his hands, and when he looked back up, there was a new, determined set to his jaw. "Brigatti, I need to get my shoes. When I come back I'll tell you."

"Tell me what?"

He spread his hands wide. Mr. Open Book. "Everything."

Here we go again, she thought. He'd gone right up to the brink of telling her, and by the time he came back, he would have thought up some ludicrous substitute for the truth. But she wasn't interested in forcing it out of him, and, much as she wanted to know, she still wasn't sure about what would happen between them once she did. 

"Fine." It came out sharp as a steak knife, and he flinched, but he headed for the door the moment she stepped aside. The last glance she had of him was of his back pocket, where he'd reached when he was about to tell her, where his hand went so often, where he kept his ubiquitous newspaper.

But this time it wasn't there.

~*~*~*~ 


	6. Chapter 6

He'd finally reached the tipping point, Gary thought as he hurried down to the courtyard. It would be easier to tell Brigatti about the paper than to keep it a secret. Sure, it was kind of terrifying to think about what would happen between them once she knew, but as long as he showed her the paper, she'd have to believe him. 

Maybe the tipping point had come because she couldn't get any angrier than she already was. Maybe this would help her understand all the things he'd done that, he had to admit, must have looked pretty sketchy from her point of view. The paper would clear up all the baggage between them: why he'd broke out of jail when he'd been accused of killing Scanlon, why he'd sided with Jade and let Brigatti be kidnapped--still not his finest moment, paper or not--and how he'd known about the explosion yesterday. It would explain everything, and maybe, for once, they could move forward.

Of course, he had to _have_ the paper to show her, and of course, it was only when he'd screwed his courage to the sticking point that he'd realized he'd left the paper down by the pool. He'd spent the afternoon sneaking looks at it to make sure the stories he'd told Marissa about had gone and stayed gone, and that nothing worse had taken their place. Now, he figured without it he had about as much chance of getting Brigatti to listen to him as the Cubs had of winning the pennant, this year or any other.

No one was splashing in the courtyard pool or playing on the swing set, but a wheeled trash can sat between the lawn chairs, and a kid in a maintenance uniform was reaching for Gary's shoes--reaching past Cat, Gary saw when he got closer. "Get out of here, furball," the kid snapped. "Let me clean up!" Cat yowled, a paw flashed, and the kid backpedaled away. 

"Here, I got it." Gary elbowed his way between them. "Those are my shoes." But there wasn't any newspaper on the ground; he'd slipped it under Brigatti's chair to keep it dry when she'd been busy glaring at Susan. And if Cat was there, it meant there was something in the paper he needed to see.

"No pets allowed, mister," the kid squeaked.

Gary grabbed his shoes. "Where is it?" he asked Cat, who leapt past him in a brush of fur that skimmed his nose and landed on the rim of the trash can. Gary's pulse picked up; something had changed. He pulled the paper, still open to the metro section, from the trash can. Cat was yowling up a storm. "It's okay, buddy, I got the paper."

The kid yanked the trash can out from under Cat, who dashed toward the hotel door. "I'm not your buddy!"

"I know, I meant--look, it's good, it's all good. Thanks." Gary followed Cat to the shade of the awning over the door. He fumbled the pages back into order. "What is it this time? C'mon, I finally decided to tell Brigat--"

She was there. In the paper. On the front page this time, an official portrait in her dress uniform and the extra large headline the _Sun-Times_ reserved for its biggest stories.

_Chicago Detective Killed; Infant Kidnapped_

~*~*~*~

Toni stood for a long time, staring at the closed door. She should have seen it sooner. It was the newspaper. He always had one. He was friends with that photographer at the _Sun-Times_ , Diaz, and Paul had told her about the bomb threat at the paper's offices the year before. Hobson's secret had something to do with that newspaper. But what, exactly?

She picked Addie's quilt off the floor and fingered the binding. He knew things that would happen--or at least he thought he did--because of the _Sun-Times_? It didn't make sense. Her father had read the _New York Times_ cover to cover every day, but he didn't run around trying to save the world because of it. Maybe Hobson had a contact at the paper who left him clues coded into stories. Or maybe whatever he read in them was a trigger for some kind of psychic ability. 

Or maybe she was getting as weird as Hobson, thinking stuff like that. 

"I know you like him," she whispered as she tucked the quilt around Addie, who was out cold in the car seat. "But he's just not normal, bug."

As if on cue, Hobson pounded on the door. "Let me in!"

"See what I mean?" She opened the door and snapped, "Would you dial it down? She's asleep."

Hobson dropped his shoes, grabbed her by the shoulders, and drove her back into the room. "We have to get out of here. We have to go _now_." He pushed past her, grabbed the car seat and Toni's arm, and hauled her toward the door. "You got the keys?" 

"Hobson!" She dug her heels into the carpet, forcing him to stop. "What's going on?"

"Those guys." He tugged her toward the door. "I saw them down by the pool, Brigatti, come on."

Addie kicked at the blanket. Toni put a hand on her foot. "Which guys? You don't even know what these people look like!"

"I heard them. They were asking about us. The maintenance guy--look, it doesn't matter, they'll find us and take her, and you--" He tightened his grip. "We have to go."

"This is--" But she stopped, because it _wasn't_ nuts. He had the same desperate look on his face as yesterday morning, and--she craned her neck--the newspaper was back in his pocket. However he knew, or thought he knew, whenever he got like this, he tended to be right. "Okay, let's go."

He reached for the door, but they both heard the stairway door down the hall clang. He turned wild eyes on her. "How do we get out of here?" 

Toni shook off Hobson's grip and hustled back to the nightstand. She nabbed the keys, pushed them into his hand, and flung open the pair of doors to the adjoining room. "Wait in here. Keep her quiet. When you hear them in our room, make sure they're out of the hall, then take Addie down to the car and get the hell out of here."

"No."

Footsteps pounded toward their room; there was no knocking on other doors, not even a hesitation. Whoever it was knew where to find them. She shoved Hobson's chest, pushing him toward the adjoining room. "I told you, you pick Addie. Save _her_."

"I'm not leaving you."

She smacked his hand away and drew her Glock. "My job is to put these guys out of commission. Yours is to get Addie safe. Check in with Paul later and we'll meet up." The footsteps halted right outside their door. "Go!" 

She pushed him into the room, pulled the door closed and locked it from her side. A key card clicked in the lock to the hallway door. She planted herself in a firing stance. Didn't matter how they'd found her. They were here.

Not they. He. There was just one guy, Caucasian, brown hair, big as a rhino, with a gun--a Browning--in one hand and a key card with a huge tag that read "Housekeeping" in the other. He looked her up and down. "Where's the kid?"

"Chicago PD--"

He elbowed the bathroom door open, gun still trained on her. She should have taken the shot when he looked into the bathroom, but protocol took over. "Put down your weapon!"

He charged her as if her gun wasn't even there; in an instant he was too close for a safe shot. She spun into a side kick that sent his gun flying toward the beds. He caught her leg and swung her into the television, slamming her shoulder onto its edge. Pain jarred down to her gun hand, jerking it open when she landed on her knees. Her gun skidded under the desk.

She dove for it, but he grabbed her arm and hauled her up and around. Before she could get leverage, his hands were around her throat. He pushed her against the desk, bending her so far back her feet left the floor. "Give me the kid," he growled, "and maybe I won't kill you." Every knuckle, every callus on his huge hands dug into her skin.

She'd die before she'd let those hands touch Addie. Hobson had to be on his way out by now. Tiny black spots popped in her vision. She couldn't even get a toe on her gun to move it closer. She opened her mouth to make him think she'd tell him something. He loosened his hold enough to let her suck in air. 

"Even if you find her--" Which he _wouldn't_ , Hobson had to be out in the parking lot by now. "--even if you kill me, it won't stop the trial." Every word that rasped over her throat hurt, but every one gave Hobson more time. "No one will tell her mother what's happened until after she testifies, so you can tell Guyette--" She finally landed a kick on his knee, and one of his hands came away from her throat. "--he's not going to win." 

Her second kick had enough space to build up speed and force, and it landed quite a bit higher than his knee. He stumbled back against the bed. "Fucking bitch!" 

She bent down, scrabbling for her gun, but he hauled her up and slammed her into the sliding glass door. The back of her head bounced off it, and she went down again. She looked out, hoping to see the rental was gone, but he kicked her out of the way, opening the door and stepping out onto the balcony, gun in hand. If Hobson was still out there, this guy would have a clean shot at him. 

With _her_ gun. His had landed--there, under the nightstand. She dove over Hobson's bed and had her fingers on the silver handle, but before she could secure it, he grabbed her by the hair and yanked her away. She twisted uselessly as he dragged her to the open space at the end of the beds. In the television screen she could see their reflection, his steady bulk and her flailing limbs. "Fuck this, I'm done with you." He jabbed her gun under her chin.

She squeezed her eyes shut, gathering herself to move, somehow, in the moment between his pulling and releasing the trigger.

"Brigatti!" Hobson pounded on the adjoining room door.

No, no, _no_. She fought to get at least one foot flat on the floor, but he tightened his hold on her hair, dragged her to the door, and unlocked it.

Through her watering eyes, she saw Hobson, the _idiot_ , who stood there holding the baby carrier, turned so Addie was cocooned against his chest. "Let her go," he said, all tough guy attitude when he had no gun. When he had Addie.

The guy pulled Toni closer and jabbed the gun into her temple. "Give me the kid and we'll talk about it."

"First you let her go."

"Hobson," she gasped, "don't--"

The hand in her hair swung Toni to the side and down, into the corner of the dresser. Lightning struck behind her eyes, and for a second there was nothing but white pain and falling and Hobson shouting.

She landed on her knees between the beds and opened her eyes in time to see Hobson slam the car seat into her attacker's face. The whole room jumped at the impact; the bed bounced as the guy fell back onto it. The car seat went flying toward the bathroom. 

Empty. It had to be empty. 

Her attacker came off the bed with a roar, swinging Toni's gun in her direction. Hobson barreled into him, forcing him toward the balcony. Toni grabbed the Browning and staggered to her feet. 

Something was wrong with her vision. There were sharp lines through everything, and the pieces didn't match up. When she turned her head, they jittered and spun like cherries on a slot machine. 

Addie. Where the hell was Addie?

But when her vision focused, it landed on Hobson, struggling out on the balcony with a hairy arm around his neck and her gun shoved in his ear. She took aim--or tried to--at the attacker. Too much of him was behind Hobson, and neither one of them would hold still.

"You won't find the baby if you kill us," she managed.

"I'll have a lot more time to look."

Hobson's bare feet slipped against the concrete as he tried to get purchase and shove the behemoth against the railing. Idiot, _idiot_ , she'd _told_ him the railing was loose. The attacker squeezed Hobson's neck tighter and waggled the gun, as if he was drilling it into his head. Hobson's face shaded from red to purple. "Bring me the kid or I'll splatter him."

Toni's splintered vision narrowed to a single shard. Hobson's eyes looked green again. He trusted her, no matter what.

She shook her head. "I can't do that."

"I know," Hobson mouthed. 

She didn't have a shot to stop the guy, except through Hobson. That wasn't happening. She felt, as much as heard, him pull the trigger back--but instead of a shot, the next sound was a terrified wail that tore through Toni like a second lightning bolt. 

Behind Hobson, the gunman's features started into a grin, but Hobson stiffened and heaved back, knocking his gun arm wide. The shot pinged off a car down in the lot. The railing rattled and bent against their weight as he struggled to get Hobson off him, or to get the gun back against his head. Toni's wonky line of sight wouldn't let her get a bead on the guy.

A tiny scratching sound to her left, under Addie's screams and the men's grunts, was the last, grating straw against her jangled nerves. She tore her gaze away from the struggle and saw the cat, Hobson's cat, sitting on the railing and pawing at the loose bracket, hanging now by a single bolt that was already half out of the wall.

Somehow it all went steady and still. Her gun hand automatically followed her turn. She fired at the bolt, an impossible shot that should have ricocheted back at her, but instead blew the bolt completely away and sent the cat flying onto the adjoining balcony.

The railing groaned, pulling away from the bolts that held it to the balcony floor. She lunged for Hobson, who wrapped both hands around her free arm. Toni threw herself back into the room as the railing gave way, pulling Hobson on top of her.

They took one breath together.

"Did you shoot my cat?"

"Off, off, get off!" 

He rolled; she jumped up and onto the balcony. There was no one sprawled in the bushes or on the pavement below, just the bent balcony railing. A green Buick with Illinois plates sped toward the exit. Toni took a couple shots at it, but they bounced off the pavement.

"Toni!" Hobson spun her to face him, sending fresh stabs of pain across her shoulders. There was a sharp pinch between her thumb and forefinger--Brownings were legendarily painful to fire, and this one didn't fit her hand the way her Glock did. Her Glock. That guy had her gun.

"There are people down there," Hobson went on. "You can't--God, you're bleeding." He touched her head and she yelped as white streaks pulsed in her vision in time with Addie's cries.

"Where is she?"

"You're hurt--"

It didn't _matter_. She grabbed Hobson's shirt in her fist. " _Where is Addie_?"

"She's okay."

But she wasn't _here_. She was alone, screaming--Toni pushed off Hobson and followed the sound to the adjoining bathroom, where a red, blotchy face, round as the moon, rose over the edge of the tub.

"Oh, bug." The room and Toni's stomach both lurched, but whatever upheaval was going on, earthquake or concussion, threw her in the right direction. She landed on her knees next to the tub, lifted Addie into her lap, and squeezed her tight. "It's all right. You're okay, baby bug. It's all right," Toni crooned, rocking back and forth. Addie wrapped her arms around Toni's neck and bawled like the world was ending. 

But it hadn't, they were okay, Addie was fine if she had enough air to cry so loudly, even though Hobson had left her in a bathtub full of hard surfaces and edges. 

Which, she realized as her breathing slowed and she was able to focus on something other than Addie's desperate, clinging fear, was lined with towels. Addie's quilt was draped over the fixtures. It was safe as a bathtub could be on short notice.

"You're not hurt," Toni said, but she held Addie away from her, checking her for bumps and bruises. "Just scared, right?" She brushed some of the curls away and kissed the top of her head. "Me, too. He didn't get you, he didn't touch you." Addie hiccupped sobs straight from her belly.

Toni snuggled her tight, then jumped, bumping her elbow against the toilet, when a hand tried to brush the hair off her face. But it was Hobson's hand, not--she shuddered. He helped her to stand.

"No," she said when he reached for Addie. Everything hurt and she couldn't see straight, but she wasn't letting go. For once Hobson didn't say anything. He led her to one of the beds, sat her down, and put one hand over hers--over her hand that still held the Browning. She hadn't realized--he met her eyes and nodded, and she let it go. "I didn't hit your cat." At least, she hadn't meant to.

"He'll be fine. He always is. And that shot--" One corner of his mouth curled up. "That was incredible. Thanks."

"It's my job," she said, though she was pretty sure she couldn't have shattered that bolt again no matter how many times she tried.

Hobson went back into the bathroom. Addie quieted into sniffles and rubbed her face on Toni's shirt. They had to get out before anyone came to see what all the noise was about, but she couldn't move.

Hobson sat down next to her. He handed Fred to Addie and held out a damp washcloth. "I'm just going to--you're bleeding." 

That was probably the throbbing pain above her right eye. Not to be confused with the one at the back of her head, or the one in her shoulder. "Head wounds tend to do that," she said, but she let him press the cloth against the spot where she'd hit the dresser corner. 

"You're also shaking." 

"And you're not?" She closed her eyes and covered his hand with her own, and they sat like that for a few seconds, trying to let go of the could-have-beens while Addie sniffled into her shoulder.

But she couldn't do it; her mind was flooded with the image of the hands that had slammed her around and choked her squeezing the life out of Addie. She pulled away, taking the wash cloth with her. "I told you," she finally said, her voice still rasping through her throat, "if it comes down to me or her, you pick her."

He held her gaze steady. "I didn't see it as an _or_. I saw it as an _and_."

"What the hell does that mean?"

His jaw worked, as if there were still things between them that couldn't be said. "Means I wouldn't have made it to the car on my own." He got up and went into their room. 

"You left her alone," Toni called after him, and instantly regretted the way shouting made her head throb. She touched the washcloth to her temple, and it came away with just a few fresh dots of blood. Thank God for small favors.

"Cat was with her." He came back with his arms full of his shoes, the backpack, the car seat, and the bags of food. He stuffed the bags in the backpack and sat down on the opposite bed to tie his shoes. "If I hadn't gone back in there, you'd be dead and Addie would be gone."

"You didn't _know_." She squeaked words out through the throbbing pain in her head, less sharp now but still there. She didn't even know why she needed to argue with him, especially when he'd been right about them being found. 

"I did, I told you--or was about to tell you--"

Addie lifted her head and started crying again--hungry, or exhausted, or just completely spent, like Toni felt. Hobson stomped into the bathroom on one shoe. When he came back out, he had a newspaper, the same battered copy of the _Sun-Times_ he'd been carrying around all day.

"This is how I knew." He dropped it on the bed next to her. "It's how I always know."

"I don't understand." Toni bounced Addie to calm her down, but her own pulse pounded against the bruises forming on her neck. She _did_ understand, at least she thought she did, and if she was right, nothing would ever be the same again. The world might never stop wobbling.

"Read it. Read the date, read the stories." Hobson sat on the opposite bed and pulled on his other shoe.

She squinted at the front page. " _Thousands Crowd Bookstores for Harry Potter Release_?"

"Yeah, it changed. Twenty minutes ago it said a Chicago detective was killed trying to stop a kidnapping at a Schaumburg hotel. Go to the metro section. And check the date, will ya?"

She tried, but turning the pages made the print blur and jump. "I can't see it."

"Okay, look." He sat down next to her again and held the paper steady, close to her face. "Right here, top corner. July 8, 2000. That's tomorrow."

"If you say so." 

Addie, still crying, grabbed at a page and ripped it. Hobson took the paper back into his lap. He spoke slowly, as though Toni was brain damaged. "I get the paper a day early. I see stories about what's going to happen today. The things they'll put in the paper for everyone to read about tomorrow. If I go out and change the bad stories, they don't happen. When I went to the pool and got this thing back, I saw a story about you being killed and Addie being taken. That's why I tried to get us all out, together. That's why I came back for you."

In one way, it made a weird kind of sense. In every other way, it made no sense at all. Even her theory about psychic triggering seemed logical by comparison. "I may have a bump on my head, but give me a little credit."

"Look, either you believe me or you don't, but you can't deny the evidence." He flipped pages and stuck a new one in front of her face. The words were still all swimmy, but she managed to follow the headline as he read it: " _Chicago Detective Arrested for Vandalism in Hotel Tryst_."

" _Tryst_?"

"That's not the important part. In about--" He looked at his watch. "--six minutes or so, security or the Schaumburg police or someone'll come up here and find the mess in the other room and take us both into custody." He stood, slung the backpack over his shoulder, and picked up the car seat. "What happens to Addie then? C'mon."

Maybe none of this was real. Maybe she was out cold in the other room. The only thing that seemed real to her was Addie, warm and sniffling in her arms. Toni had to keep her safe. "We need to call Paul."

"Not here, not now." Hobson held up the Browning. "What do you want me to do with this?"

"Put the safety on and hand it over." With Addie still clutching her shirt and whimpering, Toni managed to get up and tuck the gun--too big, too not hers--into her waistband. "Let's go."

Hobson hustled her to the back stairway, one arm resting lightly on her shoulder. She hated how much she needed him to keep her relatively steady, but the movement, especially down the stairs, jarred everything into shreds again, and she had to keep her teeth pressed together to hold herself in one piece.

When they got to the car, Hobson secured the car seat in the back, then stepped aside to let Toni buckle Addie in tight. "You want to sit back here with her?" he asked. "'Cause you sure as hell aren't driving." 

She turned around to face him, leaning against the car for support. "No, I'm not. What?" she added when he just stood there, looking at her as though he was waiting for something.

His lips quirked in a half-grin. "Thanks for not shooting me."

"Shooting you wasn't an option. Too much paperwork." Speaking of which--she squinted at him. "A clairvoyant newspaper? Seriously?" 

He pulled the _Sun-Times_ out of his pocket and handed it to her. "I don't know where it comes from, or why. But for four years now, it's come every day, and it's been right, and I've done what I can to change the bad stuff that happens."

Toni didn't even bother to look at the newspaper. There was too much light out here; even Hobson reflected a glare into her eyes. "So why are you telling me?"

He leaned in, shadowing away the glare, and tucked her hair behind her ear. "Because you're an _and_."

There was nothing wrong with her hearing; the faint wail of sirens was about half a mile away and closing fast. Plenty of time for his hand to slip behind her head and pull her closer, plenty of time for a kiss, warm and steadying--a ridiculous kiss that clicked the pieces of the world back into a whole new pattern.

She pulled away enough to ask, "Why _now_?"

He touched his forehead to hers. "It's a right time, right place kinda thing," he mumbled.

Only Hobson would say that when the sirens were a block away. She gave him a push toward the driver's door. "Let's go."

They pulled out of the parking lot as a couple of Schaumburg black and whites pulled in. Rush hour was getting started, so while they couldn't outrun anyone on the busy streets around the hotels and malls, they also didn't stand out as much. Wincing against the light and movement, Toni looked behind them for a green Buick as Hobson headed for the expressway. There wasn't one in sight.

"Which way?" 

She had no idea. The past few minutes had turned everything upside down. "East, I guess." She rested her head on the seatback and toyed with Addie's fingers. Addie clutched at her hand, but she seemed to relax as the car kept moving. 

Toni glanced down at the paper in her lap. It was open to the metro section, but the big headline was about jury selection in the Guyette trial. Maybe Hobson had shown her a different page. Although--she had to bring the paper to her nose to keep the tiny print steady enough to confirm it--the date in the top right corner was July 8. If she thought hard, and put all the pieces of the Hobson puzzle, the ones she'd been collecting for months now, together, they might add up to confirmation of his story--or proof he was completely nuts, and seemed to think she was, too.

But right now she really didn't want to think. It hurt too much.

"You know," Hobson said, "It's pretty stupid of Guyette to send just one person after you at a time." 

"Stupid or sexist. Guyette seems to like the steroid-fueled types. I'm _fine_ ," she added when she caught him watching her in the rearview. "Keep your eyes on the road."

She closed her own eyes. There was too much to process, and she had to figure out how they'd been found. How Hobson knew should have been immaterial, but she kept coming back to it. He'd gone down to the playground for the newspaper, and he'd come back in a royal panic, as if he'd read a story about something terrible happening. She was supposed to die, he'd said, and Addie would have been kidnapped, and he--she blinked. Where did he figure into the story that should have been?

"What would have happened to you?" she asked.

The car accelerated as he merged onto the expressway. "To me?"

"What did your newspaper say about you before it changed?"

His second of hesitation might have been the time he needed to switch lanes. It might have been a lot of things. "I told you, it said Addie was gone. Some witness on the first floor saw one of them get into their car with her."

The lines between civilian and cop had long since blurred, but she used her interrogator's voice anyway. "Answer the question, Hobson." 

He met her eyes in the rearview mirror. "You can believe whatever you want about that paper, but you'd damn well better believe there's only one way they would have taken Addie away from me."

Toni swallowed a wave of nausea. "You read about your own murder?"

He looked back at the road. "Wouldn't be the first time. Wasn't even the first time I read about yours."

That morning at the safe house, then out on the bridge--and before that, on a hotel roof and in a train yard. He'd had the same look, every time, as the one he'd had when he'd come back from the pool. It wasn't out of the realm of possibility it was the look of someone who'd seen the worst and was determined to stop it.

Why did she believe him? She must have the world's worst concussion. "Take the next exit," she said, even though she didn't know what that would be. Trying to read the road signs was making her sick. "Find a gas station where I can go inside and call Paul."

Hobson drove to a suburban complex of strip malls and apartments that didn't look much different from the place they'd just left. He pulled into the parking lot of a convenience store.

"Wait here," she said as she got out. The sunlight stabbed at her eyes and she grabbed the roof of the car.

Hobson undid his seatbelt. "I don't think so."

"You have to stay with--with--" She pointed at the backseat, where the baby was beginning to whimper. Toni couldn't pull her name out through the pounding headache, and that terrified her. "Stay with the baby," she finished. 

She drew in a deep breath, steadied herself, and walked deliberately to the door. Behind her, she heard Hobson swearing, a car door slam. Inside, the stink of old coffee and hot dogs made her dizzy, but she spotted the phone in the back corner. She kept her focus on the blue sign and put one foot in front of the other. She was halfway there, perfectly fine, when Hobson caught her elbow. "Like hell you're doing this alone."

"Maba!" the baby--Addie. God, how could she have forgotten Addie?--crowed.

"Okay," Toni said, because something was wrong, really wrong, with her head. Her hands shook as she fished the calling card out of her pocket.

Hobson shifted Addie to one side and took the card. "I got it." He dialed the number and gave her the handset. 

Toni put her elbow on top of the phone and rested her head in her hand while she waited for the call to go through. She was beyond grateful Addie was a foot away, whapping at Hobson's head and singing one of her tuneless baby songs, but it didn't do much for her headache. 

"Armstrong."

"Paul--" she started, then choked on the rest. She didn't know where to begin, didn't trust herself to sort out what was safe to say over the phone.

"What's wrong?"

It wasn't nearly as wrong as it might have been. Hobson turned a little, scanning the store for threats, but he didn't back away. So he heard, like Paul did, when she said, "We need help," and her voice cracked. 

But it didn't break.

~*~*~*~

Gary bounced a squirming Addie while Brigatti talked to Armstrong. He tried to stand so his back shielded the both of them from the other shoppers and the wall of windows at the front of the store. He shouldn't have stopped at such an busy place. Shouldn't have told Brigatti about the paper. Shouldn't have left it by the pool. Shouldn't have kissed her.

No, that last one hadn't been a mistake. He'd be willing to try again to prove it wasn't.

Still, he couldn't figure out why the story about the attack hadn't been in the paper earlier. Something they'd done, something he'd done, must have tipped the guys who were after Addie to their whereabouts. He had to figure out what it was so it didn't happen again. Now that Brigatti knew about the paper, she could help. 

But maybe he'd wait a while to ask--seemed like she needed a doctor more than his questions. She'd propped her elbow on the top of the phone kiosk so she could rest her head on her clenched fist. The tight ache through his ribs and the twinges around his neck were faint echoes of what she had to be feeling right now. She didn't give Armstrong a full inventory of her injuries, but that guy had done more than throw her against the dresser. The side of her neck blossomed with fingerprint bruises, and she shaded her eyes from the fluorescent lights. 

Gary fought back the specter of the guy in the hotel--his flushed, contorted face as he'd tossed Brigatti aside and lunged for the car seat like a walleye after a lure. Patting Addie's back, he whispered, "It's okay," though she wasn't fussing. Brigatti shot him a puzzled look as she "umm-hmmm"ed into the phone, and then, as if she'd read his mind and seen the same angry ghost, her frown melted and she bit her lip. 

It hadn't been her fault. It couldn't have been. Tough as it was to admit this one was on him, he'd have to make sure Armstrong--and by extension the rest of Brigatti's colleagues--knew that. As if to remind him the worst hadn't happened, Addie tugged on his hair and whapped at his face--untouched, unhurt, untaken. Brigatti would say it was worth it, no matter what had happened to her. Gary tried to believe it, because right now it was the only thing keeping him out of a regret vortex.

"Must have had a partner down the car--down _in_ the car," Brigatti corrected herself with a wince. "I don't know how they found us. We didn't exactly have time to chat. It could have been--" She met Gary's gaze, and he gulped. Had it been his call to Marissa? "--it could have been a lot of things," she finished. 

Addie got bored with drumming on Gary's face and lunged toward the chips on the endcap behind him. "No, now, look, you don't want Fritos. They'll stunt your growth." He wrestled the bag away from her. Her whines threatened a meltdown until he offered her his knuckle to gnaw on. 

Brigatti nudged him with her elbow. "He wants to talk to you." Gary pulled a goobery finger from Addie's mouth so he could hold the phone and braced himself for a verbal beatdown. "Hey," he said tentatively. Brigatti took a step away, rubbing at the back of her head as she scanned the store, scowling at the slushie machine as if it were a threat.

"Hobson." Armstrong's voice was taut as a tripwire. "Is the baby okay?"

"Yeah, she's fine." Addie took up her drum routine on Gary's shoulder. "She's not the one I'm worried about." Brigatti flashed him a glare from halfway down another aisle.

"Tell me you didn't let Toni drive."

"Of course I didn't." Gary lowered his voice. "Tell you what, I'm about to drive her right to a hospital."

"Not a great idea."

"She hasn't told you half of what that guy did. He was huge, and he threw her into a dresser--her head was bleeding, and that's just the part I saw." Addie grabbed a handful of Gary's hair and started chewing. "She's still woozy. She needs a doctor."

"I'm not going to a doctor," Brigatti called, then closed her eyes and grabbed onto the nearest shelf. The kids at the candy counter glanced back at them. Gary took a half step toward her, but the phone cord pulled him up short. She waved him off, then massaged her hand between her thumb and forefinger.

"You really think she needs one?" Armstrong asked.

"I think I'm _not_ one," Gary whispered, while Addie twisted his earlobe. "She took at least one blow to her brain--" Brigatti rubbed the back of her head again. "--make that two, and she has bruises around her neck."

"Damn." Armstrong was quiet for a second, and Gary thought how ridiculous this was, waiting for permission to do the only logical thing. "Look, I get that you're worried. If you want to have that fight with her, that's up to you, but you need to think this through. A doctor'll want to know how she got hurt."

"We'll make something up." He kept his voice low, hoping Brigatti was too far away now to hear him. She seemed to be looking over the Pop-Tart selection, with the occasional glance around the store. 

"Think you can pull one of your creative explanations out of your ass?"

"I'll say she fell."

Armstrong made a sharp sound from somewhere deep in his chest. "Or maybe she walked into a door. C'mon, Hobson, you don't get bruises on your neck-- _women_ don't get bruises on their necks--from falling down stairs or walking into doors."

No, they didn't. The paper had sent Gary to stop more than one domestic dispute.

"They'll take one look at her," Armstrong went on, "and at the guy who says he's her husband, and at that baby, and they'll come to a conclusion. What do you think they'll do then?"

Gary knew what doctors and nurses were required by law to conclude. Hell, according to the paper, the Schaumburg police, if they'd shown up before he'd left the hotel, would have thought pretty much the same thing. "They'd split us up," he muttered.

"They'd have enough to arrest you and send the baby to Child Protective Services, where she'd be a sitting duck for anyone who wants to grab her. You tell them the truth, you blow your cover. Either way, you'd put all three of you in even more danger than you're in right now."

Armstrong was right. No doubt Brigatti had figured out the same thing already--three steps ahead of him, even with a concussion. He rubbed a circle on Addie's back while she reached for the silver phone cord. "Okay, okay, no doctors. How do I help her?"

"You telling me you've never had a brain bump?" Without waiting for an answer, Armstrong shifted into cop-in-charge mode--the same decisive, order-barking voice Gary'd always thought the cat would have, if he could talk. "Let her rest, but not too deep a sleep. Get her to eat something and drink water. The most important thing is that you all get somewhere safe. Anything wrong with the car? Any dents, broken windows, flat tires?"

"Don't eat that." Gary pried the phone cord--now covered with drool--out of Addie's hand. "Car's fine," he told Armstrong. 

Brigatti wandered back over to the phone. "What's taking so long?" she mouthed, arms out for Addie. Gary let her take the baby, but he also put one hand on her shoulder before she could walk out of reach. She rolled her eyes but stayed put.

"Good," Armstrong said. "If they'd known which car was yours, they'd have tried to disable it. You're going to drive for a while. Anywhere but where you've been in the past forty-eight hours or so. Keep your eyes open, keep a low profile, keep moving. At seven-twenty, I want you to park in the Maxwell Garage on the UIC campus. You know where that is?"

"Yeah." A few months ago, Gary'd had to stop a pack of drunken pranksters from burning down a nearby dorm.

"I'll meet you there. If anything looks wonky when you get there, don't stop. Drive out and call me later."

"Got it." He sucked in a deep breath and squeezed Brigatti's shoulder. She pinched her lips together. "Sorry. Look, Armstrong, you should know, Brigatti did everything right." He started to grin at the way her eyes widened, but they were still too shadowed. "It's not her fault they found us." 

"I figure it's yours, somehow."

"Look, I had to--"

"I'm kidding. Sort of. How they found you matters a lot less than them never finding you again. And Hobson--" Armstrong stopped.

"What?"

Brigatti gestured toward the door with a tilt of her head as another few customers trickled in. "Let's _go_."

"--keep your guard up," Armstrong finished. His voice dropped, almost as if he were talking to Gary man-to-man for once, instead of cop-to-idiot. "You know what's at stake here."

"Yeah, I do. See ya."

Addie pulled herself over Brigatti's shoulder, trying to get to the Fritos again. Gary hung up and steered Brigatti toward the cooler. "We've got a plan, and I'm getting you some water. Aspirin's in the backpack. Want anything else?"

"I want you to leave me alone," she groused half-heartedly.

"Not going to happen."

They went back to the car with water, a couple of pre-packaged ham sandwiches, and a bag of Fritos. Good thing, too; Addie stiffened and twisted, fighting another round of imprisonment in the car seat until Gary gave her the shiny orange bag to whap on. The chips would be pulverized, but at least she let him buckle her in tight. Brigatti slipped in beside her while Gary dug the aspirin bottle out of the backpack and opened it.

"You don't have to do that," she said when he handed it to her. "I'm fine, Hobson, really."

"It's Greg, remember?" He grinned and gave her the water bottle, which he'd also opened.

Her "yeah" was weary. Gary grabbed the paper and got behind the wheel. Nothing about them or Rachel on the first few pages, nothing in the metro section. He glanced in the rearview mirror. "It's clear, there's no story about them finding us." 

"Uh-huh." He couldn't tell if the doubt in Brigatti's voice was for what he'd said, or for the paper in general. "Where are we going?"

He started the car and pulled out of the parking lot. "Armstrong's got a plan," he said, raising his voice over the crackling chip bag. "We're going to drive around for a while, then meet up with him on the UIC campus. You can sleep if you want."

"Not a good idea," Brigatti murmured, but she rested her forehead against the window and closed her eyes. "Gotta figure out how they found us and who's helping them. Dennis isn't bright enough to do this on his own."

"You do that." Gary decided he'd take side streets and head in the general direction of the campus, south and east from where they were now, and try not to leave a trail anyone could follow. He opened his sandwich while he waited for a light to change. 

"Triangulation," Brigatti mumbled. "That's how they knew. Had to be."

"Triangu-what?" Gary asked through a mouthful of sandwich. 

"Matching up phone records to find the common denominator. They aren't tapping the lines, but if they're cops, they can get the records pretty quick."

"But if they didn't know we were in the hotel, how could they get records for the phones there?"

"Not the hotel. Your bar. Maybe Armstrong's phone, too. Marissa called him yesterday, and you called her today from a number that would have shown up on his phone when I called him." 

Gary had as much trouble following that line of logic as he did navigating the maze of suburban cul-de-sacs and diagonal streets. Was it him being stupid, or Brigatti being concussed? 

"They figured it must be us," she went on. "They go to the hotel, wave a picture of one of us at the kid at the front desk and claim to be a relative, or pay him off to get our room number. Grab a master key off a housekeeper's cart while she's on break--" 

She was interrupted by a rip. Fried corn chips went flying, some as far as the dashboard. Their sharp scent filled Gary's nose, and Addie let out a wail. 

"You had to buy her the Fritos, didn't you?" Brigatti's voice cracked. "Just like you had to call the bar."

"I _did_ have to call, I told you, there was stuff in the paper I had to take care of." 

"The only thing you had to do was take care of her."

"And I did!" Addie'd been the only one of them to come out of the afternoon unharmed. "I thought the chips would make her happy," he added over her sobs. 

"Great call on that one."

Gary wasn't going to get pulled into a fight with Brigatti, no matter how much she baited. Not when her crankiness was mostly his fault, if he traced it all the way back to leaving the paper at the pool. Up ahead, he spotted a wider street, lined with fast food joints and grocery stores. He wasn't sure exactly where they were--not too far from O'Hare, if the low-flying planes above were any indication. He pulled into a Burger King parking lot. 

"What are you doing?"

He parked the car in the back corner of the lot, got out, and opened Brigatti's door. Frito bits covered Addie, the car seat, and Brigatti's hair. "C'mon, let me clean this up."

She scowled up at him. "Did you check to make sure no one's followed us?"

"How could they? _I_ don't even know where we are." The pitch of Addie's crying went up a notch, and Brigatti flinched. "This'll just take a second."

It took more like fifteen minutes to wrestle Addie out of her seat and brush twice as many Fritos as he'd thought the bag could hold out of her curls and the car, change her wet diaper, and make her up a bottle. Brigatti spent the whole time with her back to him, leaning against the trunk with her arms folded. 

"Everything went wrong at once, huh?" Gary asked Addie as he shook up the water and formula. "It's okay now." She grabbed the bottle with both hands to drink and hardly seemed to notice when he buckled her back into the seat. He straightened up and looked over at Brigatti, who hadn't moved.

"Hey," he said, sidling up behind her cautiously. He didn't want to get punched. "I'm sorry. I shouldn't have called the bar, but I didn't know what else to do. The paper was telling me people were going to get hurt, and I figured--I really believed--if anything was going to happen to us, the paper would have warned me sooner." She didn't move. "And that--that was my fault, too. If I hadn't left it out at the pool we might have had time to get away. But I'll do better now, okay? I'm sorry." He reached out tentatively and touched her shoulder. Still no response. "Brigatti? Hey, Toni--"

She spun around, swaying a little and blinking hard. "What?"

"You with me?"

"Tired. Didn't get much sleep last night." 

Yeah, right, she was tired. "I'm apologizing here. If what I did, calling Marissa, if that got you hurt, I'm really sorry." There was something in the way she looked at him, buried by exhaustion but still there, something she was thinking but wouldn't say. He wasn't sure if it was, "Thank you for saving my life," or if it was more like, "I'm looking for the first opportunity to ditch you." He hoped it was, "Let's kiss again," but the chances of that happening were pretty slim at this point. 

"I heard you." She scrubbed at her face. "They would have found us eventually. Let's get going. The sooner we meet up with Paul, the better."

Gary looked over his shoulder; no one in the parking lot or out on the street seemed to be paying attention to them. This was as good a time as any to bring it up. "About Armstrong--it's better if he doesn't know."

She squinted at him. "Doesn't know what?"

"About the paper."

"Hobson," she sighed.

"It's just that the fewer people who know about it, the better. Things tend to go bad when the wrong people find out. Not that he's wrong, but I can't always be sure what someone will do when they find out. Even Chuck tried to use it to get rich."

" _Even_ Chuck? I'd bet Fishman would be the first in line to profit off something like that."

"Actually, he was."

A faint, conspiratorial smile flitted across her lips, and was gone. "Paul Armstrong is not Chuck Fishman."

"It's not that I don't trust Armstrong." He did. Mostly. Armstrong never seemed to trust him. "But I--I trust you more." He reached for a Frito lodged in her hair, just over her ear, but she swatted his hand away.

"Even if I do believe this--and I'm still on the fence--I will not be the one to try to convince Paul Armstrong you have a magic newspaper."

"Magic" wasn't the right word for the paper, though a lot of people used it--people who knew about it, but didn't get it themselves. 

"It's not that I don't believe you at all," she said when the silence stretched out like taffy. She reached out--he thought to him, but her hand skimmed past his hip and came to rest on the back door handle. "It's a lot to believe all at once, and there are more important things I have to figure out first. Like how they found us, and how to make sure it doesn't happen again."

"Armstrong's taking care of--"

"No." She snapped the word at the same moment she opened the car door. He jumped away before she could bang it into his leg. "Whatever he's come up with, it's only temporary. Anything anyone comes up with is temporary until these people are all behind bars." She dropped into her seat and looked up at him. "Preferably for life."

"I get that. But right now--"

"Right now you think you have to protect me. You want me to believe it'll be okay thanks to your--" She waved a hand, as if she couldn't find the right word for it. "--newspaper. But that's not your job." She slammed the door shut, then cringed and buried her head in her hands.

Gary counted to ten before he got in the car. She was hurt, he reminded himself, and pissed about a lot of things. It didn't mean she didn't believe him. Hell, for all he knew, her crankiness was caused by an allergic reaction to Fritos. 

He started the car and asked cautiously, "So what is my job?"

"Shut up and drive."

He had a sarcastic comment about being more than a chauffeur locked and ready to fire, but when he looked back again, she'd drooped against the seatback, eyes closed. 

"I can do that."

~*~*~*~

Maybe she shouldn't have been so hard on Hobson. He really was trying. And with Addie, it worked. Fritos bag forgotten, she sucked down her bottle and settled into a restless doze. "It isn't naptime, bug," Toni whispered. Knowing Addie, she'd have trouble falling asleep and staying that way come bedtime. But what else could she do while Hobson drove them around Chicago? Around in circles, spinning their wheels. Meanwhile, someone in Guyette's camp was out there doing God knew what with her gun. Had she told Paul that part?

She didn't like the way her thoughts kept skittering. The amount of concentration she'd needed to have that simple conversation with Hobson--not that anything was ever simple with him--was--

\--well, it was something.

There were too many somethings to think about. Hobson's magic newspaper, for one thing. He wasn't lying about it, she knew that much. Whether or not the thing was real, he believed what he was saying. If she'd hook him up to a lie detector, he'd pass. Just like he'd passed last time, when Paul had thought he'd killed Scanlon.

She'd believed Hobson then, at least at first, but she hadn't known _why_. Believed in him enough to get him a lawyer--who'd walked out of the interview shaking his head. It had led her to see things, at least for a day or so, from Paul's perspective. Long enough to take aim at Hobson. She hadn't been able to shoot him, but she'd come close.

"Stay safe," Paul had said a few minutes ago, and, "I have an idea," but he hadn't told _her_ the idea. He'd told Hobson. The guy he'd suspected of murder a few months ago. Were they back to this, to Paul thinking she couldn't handle the job? No, if he'd thought that, he would have said something. 

Hobson took a turn so fast her stomach lurched. She gripped the armrest and clenched her jaw against the vertigo and waited for her stomach to settle before she took the bottle from Addie's slack hand. Addie grabbed her pinky and squeezed. "I'm here, I promise," she whispered--too low, she thought, for Hobson to hear, but he met her gaze in the rearview with a lopsided grin.

"Dope," she whispered, and closed her eyes. Darkness was the only place safe enough to rest. 

A sharp crack startled her so badly she sloshed what was left in the water bottle onto her jeans. She was sure the sound had been real until her vision sharpened enough to see Hobson was still driving and Addie was still sleeping. Her breathing was too quick, too shallow. No one else was in the car. No shots had been fired. 

"Welcome back," Hobson said. "How's your head?" 

"Hobson--" It came out breathless and shaken. But he wasn't shot, he was still there, her panic came from--

\--from a dream. The memory slammed into her, forcing her to sit up straight. The guy who'd attacked her earlier had jumped into the back seat at a stoplight, pointing a gun-- _her_ gun--at Hobson's head, forcing him to play chauffeur in his own kidnapping. _It's okay_ , Hobson had said, _I've done this before_ , but he hadn't been able to steer straight. Addie had been between Toni and the gunman, and Toni had been made of lead, of stone. She couldn't move, not even when Hobson begged her to do something. She couldn't even speak; the words stuck in her throat, and all that came out was a hoarse croak. The man looked at her and laughed. Pulled the trigger on Hobson--

"Toni!" 

She forced her eyes open again. Again. Again. Had she been remembering a dream, or having a new one? And why the hell was he calling her Toni? He only did that when things went to hell.

Breathe, she told herself. Focus on Addie, gnawing on your finger in her sleep. On Hobson, not shot, he was okay, but he'd stopped the car on a side street and turned most of the way around, shaking her shoulder.

"You with me? Can you hear me?"

She nodded, gulped against a dry mouth and a pounding heart. "He has my gun."

"Who--" He looked out the window, then back at her. "Oh." He released her shoulder. "And you have his. I'm not worried about guns right now."

"You should be." The crack of the shot still echoed in her chest, and she couldn't shrug it off. "Just drive, Hobson. I'm fine. It was a dream. Are the doors locked?"

"Yeah." But he held her look for a moment more. Whatever he saw made his jaw tighten and stay that way as he turned around.

She took a steadying breath and ran a hand through Addie's wild curls. Addie stirred, popping her lips against each other with her eyes closed. Toni had no idea if it was better for the kid to sleep or wake up at this point. Sunlight slanted into the car at an early evening angle. "What time is it?" she asked as Hobson pulled back into traffic. "Where are we meeting Paul?"

He gave her another odd look, this one from the rearview mirror. "Parking garage on the U of I Chicago campus, in about half an hour." The exaggerated patience in his voice must have meant he'd told her before.

He nattered as he drove--about plans, about which streets he was taking, about traffic patterns. It was an obvious ploy to gauge her mental state, and even though part of her hated herself for it, she played along, as if she had to prove something to him. Despite the overwhelming effort it took to let his words in, she focused on what he said and made what she thought were reasonable responses while he drove to the campus and circled it a few times. Addie whimpered and fussed herself awake, rolling her sweaty head back and forth against the car seat until she let out a howl that split Toni's forehead right between the eyes. "Almost there," she promised. Addie grabbed the finger Toni stroked over her cheek and bit it. "Ow!"

"Armstrong didn't say where in the parking garage to meet him," Hobson said when he stopped to pull a ticket out of the automatic gate at the entrance. 

"Park on the visitors' level." Toni shimmied Fred at Addie, trying to get a smile out of her. "He'll find us."

As soon as Hobson pulled into one of the many empty spots, Toni took the Browning and her holster out of the backpack. She got out, buckled on the holster, and forced the Browning into the holder. 

Hobson rolled down his window. "What are you doing?"

"I can't provide cover with my back to the garage." Besides, it felt good to stand up again. She moved toward the trunk, listening hard for cars and footsteps. The only sound echoing through the cavernous space was Addie's whining, growing louder now the car had stopped.

"You're a sitting duck out there," Hobson called. 

"I know what I'm doing." Whether or not anyone else believed it. 

"What am I supposed to do about her?" Addie's fussing turned into actual cries. Poor kid needed to get out, and probably another diaper change.

"Improvise." There, a level below them, a car pausing at the entrance, then winding slowly past the faculty spaces. "Duck." Without looking to see if he'd obeyed, she crouched by the door, hiding herself as well as she could next to the car. But when headlights crested the turn to their level, she recognized the grill of a Crown Vic.

Paul pulled into the space next to theirs as Toni unbuckled Addie from the car seat. Addie squirmed and kicked at her, but at least her cries settled back into whimpers. 

"She okay?" Paul asked as he got out. 

"She's tired of riding." Toni wondered if she was still dreaming somehow--even on a July evening, Paul Armstrong in a short-sleeved shirt, without suit coat or tie, was a surprise. Maybe he meant it as a disguise. "Rachel?"

"She has the full bowl of alphabet soup with her at the State's Attorney's office--U.S. Marshals, CPD, FBI, U.S.A.G.--" he added when Hobson, who'd squeezed himself out of the front seat between the two cars, gave them a puzzled look that twisted his forehead. "They're going over her testimony. They've got a jury, so she'll be up day after tomorrow. I'll pick her up and bring her back to the hotel tonight after I get you settled."

"You're sure she's safe?" Toni pressed. 

"After what happened to you, you think I'd leave her if she's not protected? Even if someone from one of those departments is in with Guyette, they won't be able to do anything with the rest of them around. Let's get you guys moved into my car."

While Paul switched places with her to get the car seat unbuckled, Hobson reached through the open front window and pulled out his newspaper. He scanned it, rolled it up and put it in the back pocket of his jeans, and gave Toni a quick nod. She was shocked at the wave of relief that washed over her. 

The ballet of moving their things into Paul's car and getting poor Addie strapped back in took less than five minutes. Hobson didn't even complain about the backseat this time, just folded himself in next to Addie. 

He was probably right about keeping his newspaper from Paul. No matter how many bonus points she'd earn for finally figuring out Hobson's secret, Paul would also lock them both up in a psych ward and take Addie back to the hotel if they tried to tell him what was going on. As it was, he shot her constant sidelong looks while he drove them to wherever the hell they were going--northwest of downtown, but he didn't say the address. He had her tell him exactly, moment by moment, what had happened in the hotel. Hobson pretended to talk to Addie, who whined and gave out her barky cries in response, but Toni knew he was monitoring her every word. 

"We got out of there just as the Schaumburg LEOs showed up," she finished. 

"You didn't stay to tell them what was going on?"

"They would have--" She stopped at Hobson's sharp intake of breath. _Tryst_ , she thought with revulsion. What a stupid word. "--asked too many questions, and I don't know who to trust at this point," she finished. 

"Yeah, I get that." Paul flicked another sideways look her way.

"Except you." She slumped back and let the headrest cushion her aching skull. "I wouldn't have called you if I didn't."

Paul pulled into another parking garage as the sun was finally going down. Longest day of her life, Toni thought. He activated the entrance gate with a key card and parked in a reserved spot. Hobson unlatched the car seat from the base with a lot less cussing than a day ago, but Addie was so unhappy, waving her fists and blinking fat tears off her eyelashes, that Toni unbuckled her and picked her up. Addie twisted her fingers in Toni's hair and pulled.

Paul opened the trunk. "Hobson, help me out here." He piled a big box of diapers and a bunch of bulging plastic bags into Hobson's arms. Paul took a few bags himself, but he left his gun hand free. "It's a great place," he said as he led them through the underground labyrinth. A labyrinth full of dead spots where anyone could be hidden, could be waiting to do anything to them out of sight of security cameras and witnesses. She cupped a hand around Addie's bobbing head and wished for her own gun, not the huge chunk of metal stretching her holster out of shape. 

"These are corporate apartments for long-term stays. Meredith's brother Steve manages the place." They'd reached a bank of elevators; Paul pushed the call button and looked from her to Hobson and back. She wasn't sure how to stand; what if Guyette's people were lying in wait on the elevator? But she didn't like having her back to the vast expanse of the garage.

"How secure--" she started.

"Who knows we're here?" Hobson asked over her. He had the grace to add, "Sorry," when he saw the look on her face.

"Nobody," Paul said. "Not even Banks--not yet, anyway. I told Steve I had a friend from Detroit who's thinking of joining CPD and needs a place for his family to crash while he interviews." He turned to Toni. "It's at least as secure as your safe house. You'll have the whole top floor to yourself. You need the key card to get into the lobby or garage, and the elevators and condo doors are accessed by thumbprint locks. State of the art security." He grinned at Addie and chucked her under the chin. "I figure it's better used on her than on some corporate bigwig."

The elevator settled on their level and the doors slid open. Toni shifted Addie to her left hip and reached for her holster. 

"It's clear." Paul held the door open for them. He swiped his thumb over a black patch on the console and the elevator started up. "We'll get your prints registered in the lock system once we're up there."

"Sounds pretty safe," Hobson said from behind his pile of plastic bags. 

"Until someone makes a phone call," she shot back.

"I said I was sorry."

So was Toni, when she saw the frown that creased Paul's face. "Yeah, you are," she muttered, grateful to Addie for starting up her frustrated cry and cutting off the argument.

"I'll get you a burner phone tomorrow for emergencies," Paul said. 

Toni wondered if it wouldn't be better to turn the offer down, cut herself off completely from the rest of the world. But if she'd done that in the first place, she might have been alone with Addie and Rachel when that goon caught up with them at the house, and she hadn't been enough...she caught Hobson staring at her and gave a little shrug. The past was past. It would take every ounce of will she had left to get through the here and now.

The elevator stopped. A glowing red 18 lit up the panel. "It's better than any motel in Schaumburg." Paul swiped his thumb across a black panel outside a honey-oak door, the only door in the tiny vestibule where the elevator had deposited them. It opened with an industrial click, and he led them into the condo. The huge, high-ceilinged space was devoted to a living room and full kitchen, separated by an island surrounded by iron stools and a high chair. Two walls were almost entirely windows that looked out over River North, down to the Loop, and out to the lake. Hobson let out a whistle.

"Cherry cabinets, Jacuzzi jets in the tub, and a million-dollar view," Paul said. "I know you've always wanted granite countertops."

"I have?" Toni couldn't remember discussing interior decorating with him. 

"All women do. Or so Meredith tells me." He gestured at the bags Hobson carried. "That stuff's from her. I asked her to put together what we'd take if we had to go away with Grace for a week or so. Should be everything you'll need."

What she really needed was to lie down in dark and silence for a few hours. Practice being dead. She couldn't say that to these two, but she could, finally, set Addie down on the parquet floor and let her crawl. Addie scooted a few feet toward the leather sofa and glass coffee table, then stopped and looked back at Toni. "It's okay, bug, you're free," Toni told her. Addie laughed and took off, crawling arm over arm down the hall that ran past the kitchen. Toni followed, trailing Paul and Hobson behind her like the world's most awkward bridesmaids. 

There were two doors at the end of the hall. The open one led to a bathroom the size of the entire hotel room they'd been in the night before. Addie went straight for the toilet, of course--perfect height to pull herself up. Hobson scooped her up before she could stick her head in the water. "Let's see what's behind door number two."

The second door was to the bedroom, a simple space with a walk-in closet, another great view of the lake, and two beds. Only problem was, one was a crib. The other was, well, one bed.

"I'll sleep on the couch," Hobson said, before she could even get her mouth open.

"Yeah you will," Paul said. He led them back to the kitchen and pointed at the wall of windows--one of which, she now saw, was actually a set of sliding glass doors. "You push the button next to the light switch and the balcony doors open."

"We'll be keeping that closed." She was done with showdowns that depended on rickety railings. 

Paul showed them how the security camera for the lobby and the thumbprint lock for the elevator worked, then had them scan in their prints to set the lock. "There's no way anyone's getting up here if you don't want them to. Nearest occupied floor is the twelfth, so they shouldn't be able to hear you, even if the baby's crying." 

"And we can't hear them," she said. Hobson shot her a faint grin, even as a bit of color crept up the sides of his face. The paper-thin walls had been the least of their problems in the hotel, but she wouldn't miss pretending not to hear their neighbors. Hobson put Addie down and she started right back down the hall. "Let her move," Toni told him. He nodded but followed her anyway. Just as well. Addie would try to swim in the toilet if she had the chance. 

Paul opened one of the bags piled on the island. He pulled out formula and cans of baby food. "Steve keeps the place stocked with groceries--there are cooking staples in the cupboards and a few things in the fridge and freezer, so you shouldn't have to call for take-out. And Winslow sent this." He extracted a set of file folders a couple inches thick from another bag. "It's personnel info on some of the people on your original task force. He thought you might want to look them over."

Toni sat on one of the stools and pulled the pile toward her. "Winslow sent these?" 

"He's been in stakeouts with you. He knows how you get when you're bored."

"He's the problem when we're bored." She rifled through the files, but the names on the tabs refused to swim into focus. "We spent our last stakeout listening to some godforsaken late night talk show about government conspiracies and alien invasions." She squeezed her eyes shut and rubbed at her forehead, trying to massage away the stabbing pain. 

"Hey." Paul rested his arms on the granite top of the island and leaned toward her. "He's worried about you. We both are." He reached out and touched the knot on her temple; she flinched away involuntarily. "Jesus, Toni."

"I'm okay," she ground out.

"No you're not. And we're allowed to worry about you even though we know you can do the job."

"I already have a pair of big brothers."

"They aren't here." A muscle in Paul's jaw twitched. "Maybe Hobson's right about the doctor."

Paul had to be beyond worried if he was willing to admit Hobson was right about anything. Down the hall, Addie squealed, and Hobson rumbled something in response. They were her responsibility. "You know it's better this happened to me than to--this is my job, Paul, and when that man--" She rubbed at the sore spot on her neck. "I thought I would have to tell Rachel I'd failed."

"You didn't."

And that was as much because of Hobson as because of anything she'd done. But she couldn't bring that up with Paul. She traced a finger on the smooth, hard surface of the island. "Look, the thing is, they want Addie."

"Yeah. So Rachel won't testify." But there was a lift at the end of his statement, almost a question. This time, this case, he trusted her enough to listen.

"It's more than that." She swallowed, and the twist of pain in her throat helped her focus. "Yesterday, they set up that explosion at the house to kill Rachel and me, but they were still going to grab Addie. And they had to have gone through a hell of a lot of trouble to track us down today. That guy was willing to kill both of us, but not the baby. He wanted her alive."

"As a bargaining chip."

"Maybe. I know I don't have anything to back it up, and I know it doesn't make a whole lot of sense, but my gut tells me it's more than that."

To her surprise, he nodded. "You should listen to your gut. Though I can't tell you what it means; this whole thing is so convoluted, it's a miracle the case hasn't fallen apart already. The important thing right now is that you _did_ keep her safe. There's no way they'll get to you tonight. Okay?"

"Yeah, okay." It wasn't, not really, but he was right--there was nothing more she could do about it tonight, and for the moment, at least, they were off the radar. "I'll be fine," she insisted. "Thank Winslow for me."

"For what? I didn't see anything." He started unpacking another bag--yogurt and bananas. "Especially not confidential personnel files."

"Understood." She pushed them to the corner of the counter. 

"You need anything else?" Paul asked. "I can put a detail on the street if you want."

"The fewer people who know where we are, the better." She wrestled the Browning free of her holster and clonked it on the island. "What I need is a gun. _My_ gun."

He stopped mid-unpacking, a box of baby rice crackers in his hand. "You need to file an incident report on what happened to your gun. If they do anything with it before you report the loss, you're on the hook for it."

"But what if filing the report gives the leak, whoever it is, the idea to use my gun--get me in trouble or suspended?"

"If you file, you're covered. You have to alert Banks at least," he added when she shook her head. "He needs to know you were hurt in the line of duty, too."

"What if he's the leak?"

"Banks?" Paul made a noise that was almost a laugh. "C'mon, Toni."

She knew he trusted their captain. She trusted their captain, as far as she trusted anybody other than Paul. That was the problem with the CPD, though: too much trust, not enough sunlight. "What would you have said last fall if someone had told you they suspected the M.E. and your partner in a murder-for-hire operation?"

He turned from the cupboard where he'd stashed the rice crackers and baby food. "You ever plan to let that go?"

She refused to match his half-teasing tone. "Not when the leak, whoever it is, nearly got Hobson and I both killed this afternoon. We can't trust anyone, you know that."

Paul grimaced, then nodded. He came back to the island and picked up the Browning, turning it over in his palms. "Can you handle this thing?"

She didn't want to. She'd already given herself a bruise firing it. But the only thing it was good for now was as her substitute weapon; any fingerprints her attacker might have left on it were long gone. "I fired one in training. It's not my favorite, but I can manage with it." 

Addie came scooting down the hall, calling, "Babababa." Hobson strolled behind her, looking at the two of them as if he was asking for permission to enter their space. When he saw Paul with the gun, he took a step back, grabbing Addie around the middle and redirecting her away from the island.

Paul put the gun down. "Where's your spare?"

"Home in my lock box." She hadn't wanted a second gun to keep track of in the same house as a mobile infant.

"I'll pick it up for you sometime tomorrow if I can. But we still need to file a report. Both of us. If we don't, I.A.'ll be on my ass as well as yours the minute anything happens, and they're not my biggest fans to begin with."

He was right about Internal Affairs, and he'd already gone way above and beyond, taking over Rachel's detail, setting up this place. She couldn't ask him to stick his neck out any more, but filing the report for all the wrong people to see was like waving a red flag at a herd of bulls. "Can we file it and lose it at the same time? Date it and bury it on a desk somewhere before it's entered in the system?" 

He rolled up the empty plastic bags into a tight ball. "For diapers," he said, tucking them into the top drawer of the island. "I'll see what I can do."

Addie had made her way back to the island; she pulled herself up on the high chair and raised a sleeper-clad leg to climb it. "Better feed her," Paul told Hobson. He gestured at the cupboard. "Take your pick." While Hobson dug around drawers for a spoon and opened a jar of something green, Paul plopped Addie into the high chair and fastened its tray in one smooth motion. 

Hobson tried to hand him the food and the spoon. "You really know what you're doing there."

Paul stepped out of the way. "Had a lot of practice lately, but it's your turn. I need to get back to our witness." But he watched Addie a bit longer, laughing when she grabbed the spoon away from Hobson. "They change everything."

Hobson was looking at Toni, not Addie, when he said, "Yeah. Yeah, I know."

Toni didn't miss the way Paul's gaze darted between them. But he only said, "Okay, I'm out of here. Stay safe," he told Toni. "We'll talk tomorrow."

Most of the green mush ended up on the floor as Addie waved her spoon around. Toni didn't have the heart to wrestle with her over it, and Hobson was preoccupied reading his newspaper. When Addie threw her spoon down and banged on the tray, shouting, "MamamambabaMAMA," Toni found a towel to wipe her down and lifted her out of the chair. Addie turned her face into Toni's shoulder. Late afternoon nap or not, it was bedtime.

Toni stopped in front of Hobson, who stood staring at his newspaper with a hand on his head, as though he'd been running his fingers through his hair and frozen that way for some reason. She nudged him with her elbow and he started. "I'm putting her to bed. Say goodnight, Gracie." 

Hobson blinked at them. "Why didn't you tell me this was here?"

"What are you talking about?"

He waved the paper in front of her face, blurring photos and text. "This story about the kids at the bookstore. Four of them get hurt tonight fighting about that wizard book."

Toni took a step back. "It's not my fault. I could barely see the thing, let alone read a story on page--" She couldn't tell if the number in the corner was an eight or a three. "--whatever that is."

Hobson stopped waving the paper around long enough to squint at it. "Five. Yeah, you're right. Not your fault. I was too worried about something happening to us to pay attention to the rest of the paper." He shook his head. "Okay. This doesn't happen for a couple hours. The bookstore's in this neighborhood. So I'll go over there a little before midnight and stop the riot. Over a book," he added, squinting hard at the story as if he could force it to make sense. "Does that seem right to you?"

He couldn't be planning--no, wait, this was Hobson. Of course he was. Panic wormed through her. This wasn't safe for him, and, much as she hated to admit it, she didn't want to be alone with the baby in her current condition. Her headache was going on five hours now and it hadn't abated one bit. "Did you get hit on the head, too? You are not going to play bookstore security guard."

"Somebody has to! They're kids." He held up the page and jabbed a finger at the story. "Shayda Jarwan, she's twelve, she ends up in the hospital, along with three others, and even more are hurt."

"How bad?"

"We're talking kids in a _hospital_ , Brigatti! Broken bones, hospitalization, maybe even surgery. Shayda is a gymnast; Callie Hopkins is a violin prodigy. Broken bones could affect their whole lives."

Toni tipped her chin down to the top of Addie's head. "This kid has mobsters on her tail, remember?" The determined, dangerous set of his jaw, his narrowed eyes, was the exact same look he'd had when he'd walked into the fight that afternoon, and doing that had nearly gotten him killed. She didn't want him going off with a look like that when she couldn't follow. "Look, Hobson, I'm not a monster. Of course I don't want anybody else getting hurt, especially not kids. But our hands are tied right now--and they're hurt, not dead. You promised you'd put Addie first."

"I will, but this is my responsibility."

"So is she." Time to fight dirty. She turned Addie's sleepy face toward him. He closed his eyes and dropped his head for a second, then reached over and tangled his fingers in Addie's curls. Right on cue, Addie giggled, and he melted into a puddle of resignation. Toni went in for the kill. "If she isn't your priority--if you don't want to be part of this--you might as well leave now. For good."

His eyes went wide. "I won't leave you guys, for God's sake."

"Good." She pushed past him and started down the hall. "We're going to bed. Be here when we wake up."

~*~*~*~


	7. Chapter 7

The soft click of the bedroom door echoed like an accusation. Gary smacked the paper down on the kitchen island. He was absolutely not bailing on Addie and Brigatti, but there wasn't any reason he couldn't take care of the story in the paper.

Okay, sure, there was always the possibility the wrong people would see him. Seemed like a tiny possibility to Gary, but after the past couple days, he could understand why Brigatti was paranoid. And she was right--the kids would survive. If that guy had taken Addie, who knew what would have happened to her? 

The microwave clock read eight-forty-five. He didn't have to decide right this minute. Instead, he opened kitchen drawers until he found towels. He went to clean Addie's mess and found Cat licking up the green goop as if it were tuna. 

"Where'd you come from? Don't let Brigatti catch you," Gary muttered. More important, why had Cat shown up? "Last time you came around there was a guy with a gun." He went to the panel by the front door and pushed the button for the security camera. A square about the size of a postcard lit up and showed the lobby downstairs in black and white. The only living thing down there was a potted fern.

He went back to the kitchen and checked the paper one more time. "I know about the bookstore, but I promised," he told Cat. Actually, he hadn't promised not to go, only that he would put Addie first. He didn't see how saving some other kids would hurt her. Cat rubbed against his ankle, sending a whiff of chlorine from the now-crusty hem of his jeans. "It's not even nine o'clock. Give me some time to figure it out."

A big-screen television that would have made Chuck drool was tucked into a corner of the living room, but the noise might keep Addie and Brigatti awake. He pushed a button on the far wall, and the balcony doors slid open with a silky hiss. This balcony was a lot bigger than the hotel's, wide enough to hold a teak table and a couple of padded chairs. The railing's bolts held firm when he pushed against it. As long as no gun-wielding thugs showed up, he'd be fine out here--as fine as he could be without a cold beer on a summer night.

He settled back in one of the chairs and watched the lights come on in River North. They defined the streets and skyscrapers, the shore of Lake Michigan and the long, rectangular jut of Navy Pier, and the quick-moving constellations of boats. He could hear the L rattling, though the tracks were behind the building. All of it made him feel a hell of a lot safer--a hell of a lot more at home--than he had in the suburban hotel. McGinty's couldn't be more than a mile away; if he leaned out over the railing and craned his neck, he might even be able to see it. But he really wasn't interested in leaning on balcony railings right now. He closed his eyes and let it play out in his head--the thick arm around his neck cutting off enough blood flow to make him lightheaded; the gun stuck in his ear only half as terrifying as the one pointed at his chest. But Brigatti hadn't shot him--hadn't been able to shoot him, despite all her talk about putting Addie first--and in the end, she'd saved him. 

He wouldn't walk out on her. He'd find some way to save the kids at the bookstore, a way that would prove the paper was worth paying attention to. If he'd figured anything out in the past year or so, it was that a rescue that seemed trivial on its face could, if he committed to it, make a difference to that whole jumble of humanity moving through the darkness and neon down below. He was sure the city needed Toni Brigatti--and Rachel and Addie Pemberton--to be itself. The paper had adjusted to his situation over the past couple days because it knew the same thing. So if it was telling him he had to save the kids at the bookstore, he would find a way. 

"I'll find a way," he told Cat, who jumped into his lap and purred. Gary figured that meant things would work out. He drifted off for a while, lulled by the warm, damp air and the white noise of traffic eighteen stories down. 

Cat woke him up, pawing at his shoulder and meowing imperiously. "What? What--oh." He'd left the sliding door open, and he could hear Addie crying. Cat led the way down the hall, but Gary hesitated at the bedroom door, remembering how Brigatti had shut him out. He tapped the door with a knuckle. "Brigatti? You okay in there?"

No response, no light under the door. He took a deep breath and cracked the door open. Cat dashed in, but Gary stood just over the threshold, letting his eyes adjust. In the shaft of hall light, he could see Addie standing in the crib, slapping at the railing. Her cries stopped when she saw Gary.

Brigatti lay on her side, curled away from the crib with her head buried in her arms. Gary wasn't sure if he should wake her up or not. It worried him that she hadn't responded to Addie; on the other hand, if she was faking it, or couldn't quite pull herself out of sleep, he could hardly blame her.

"Uh-uh-uh--" Addie wound herself up for another round. Gary edged around the bed and picked her up. "Shh, shh," he soothed, rubbing her back. "It's too early for that midnight feeding, kiddo." But as soon as she relaxed and he tried to lay her back down again, she grabbed his shirt and screwed up her face, ready to howl. 

"All right, I can take a hint. Let's get out of here."

He reached for her blanket, and for Fred, but dropped them at a clank from the nightstand. He spun toward the sound--then half-twisted back again when the hall light glinted off the silver-barreled gun Brigatti pointed at him. At Addie. 

"Hey! It's me." Keeping his back between Addie and the gun, he sidestepped into the light. "It's just me, okay?"

The gun barrel shook. "God--Hobson--" Brigatti's voice was deeper than usual, threaded with cracks. "What are you doing in here?"

"I was trying to keep her from waking you up. Would you put the gun down? Please."

"Sorry," she breathed. She lowered the gun, slid it back onto the nightstand, rubbed at her face. "I thought you were--I was having another nightmare, and in the dark I couldn't see--sorry."

Despite Addie's whimpers, Gary sat on the corner of the bed. "Nah, I'm the one who's sorry. I should have turned on the light, I guess, but I didn't want to wake you up."

"Make sure I know it's you next time." She traced circles on her temples with her fingertips. "Or make sure there is no next time."

"How's your head?"

"Throbbing."

"Tell me your name and address," he prompted. Marissa always made him recite stuff like that when she thought he had a concussion.

"Detective Antonia Mirabel Brigatti. You already know my address."

"Yeah, you pointed a gun at me there, too, as I recall."

"Not funny, Hobson."

"Just making sure you're okay." And giving his heart a minute to slow down. 

She flopped back down with a grunt. "I'd like to sleep. _Sleep_ , with no dreams. I hate dreams. I get paralyzed and I can't fight back."

"I guess that's how you know it's a dream," he told her. "When you're awake, seems to me you know exactly what to do." She shook her head. "Get some rest. I'll take care of Addie." By the time he'd nabbed the blanket and Fred from the crib, Brigatti was curled up again. He hesitated in the doorway, then went back to the nightstand and picked up the gun, dangling it as far away from Addie as he could. "I'll put this in the drawer, okay? Give you more time to wake up. Maybe next time you won't get the drop on me."

"Mmmm," she mumbled.

While he stowed the gun, nudged Cat back into the hallway with his foot, and pulled the door shut behind him, Addie slapped listlessly at his chest. "What's the deal?" he asked Addie. "You having nightmares, too?" Even though he'd kept her away from the bad guy, it couldn't have been easy on her, all the noise and the stress and, yeah, okay, fear she must have absorbed from him and from Brigatti. Not even an easy-going kid like Addie could be immune to all that. 

A bottle seemed like the best bet, but instead of calming her down and getting her back to sleep, it woke her up. She drank it in record time, getting perkier with every gulp. Once it was empty, she squirmed down from Gary's lap and took off crawling toward the still-open balcony door. 

"Nope." Gary turned her around and closed the door. No matter how sturdy the railing might be, Brigatti would push him over it if she caught him out there with Addie. Especially this time of night. "Your internal clock broken or something?" he asked her. She was as full of energy as she'd been during the day. She crawled all over the living room and into the kitchen in her attempts to get to Cat. He seemed to be in on the game, leaping onto stools, chairs, the coffee table, and the ottoman, contentedly grooming himself until she reached him, then allowing her a few seconds to grab at his ears or tail before he'd jump away. Addie squealed at his antics, rolling and scooting herself around like a marine in training. 

"You really okay with this?" Gary asked when Cat jumped up onto the sofa next to him. Addie pulled herself up and dug her fingers into the fur on Cat's haunches, and Cat gave Gary a hooded look that said, "You know what I want in return."

"I can't go now," Gary insisted. He wasn't about to leave a nonsleepy Addie alone with Brigatti, a gun, and her nightmares. 

"Mreow," Cat insisted. Addie pulled his tail toward her mouth. 

"Don't eat that." Gary rescued the tail from a slobbery bath. He nabbed the paper from the coffee table and read the story again, trying to think it through. It was a little after eleven. He could walk to the bookstore in ten minutes, even if he carried Addie. How long could it take to stop a bunch of book-loving kids from rioting? He could talk to someone at the store, tell them to keep the kids under control, and leave. He'd be back in no time, and Brigatti would never have to know. He found his baseball cap and the key card, then picked up Addie, grabbing Fred for good measure. Maybe the walk would put her back to sleep. Two birds with one stone. 

But he stopped with his hand on the door knob. He couldn't do it. 

If Brigatti woke up and found them gone, she'd tear River North apart looking for them whether or not she had her head on straight enough to do it. More important, it wasn't fair. She knew about the paper now. He owed it to her to be honest about this, no matter how easily the sneaking around and lying seemed to come with everyone else. 

He tore off a bit of the back page. _Addie's with me_ , he wrote in the margin, _Checked the paper; she'll be safe_. He wanted to write more, about how important the other kids were and how easy it would be to stop them getting hurt, but there wasn't room and there wasn't time, and besides, it was hard to write much with an eight-month-old trying to swipe his pen. He propped the note against a mug on the kitchen island. "Let's hope she doesn't need it," he whispered to Addie. He thought about bringing her blanket, but she was already a little furnace, warming his chest as she snuggled up against him. The dark would have to be cover enough.

Cat followed him onto the elevator, and Addie spent the ride to the lobby waving at the mirrors. It took a second to get his bearings in the still hot, still humid night, but once he found a street sign, the map in his head clicked into place. The bookstore was about half a mile away, east and a little bit north of the condo building. He checked down the cross streets, but didn't see any idling cars or lurking, human-shaped shadows. "Piece of cake," he told Addie. She seemed happy enough to be out and about--and who was going to spot them, or even be looking for them, in the middle of the night? He kept telling himself the paper would have warned them if there was any danger, even as he listened hard for anyone who might be following. The only footsteps he heard, though, were the soft patter of Cat's paws.

Addie's eyes were huge in the dark; she took in the neon and traffic while she chewed on the fraying edge of Fred's bill. "You'll have to go undercover here," he told her as they crossed Orleans. He tried hiding her curls with his baseball cap, but she tossed it right to the ground, so he put it back on himself. "Okay, so you keep your head down and--whoa."

They were a full city block from the bookstore--and so was the end of the line to its door. "You'd think it was a Springsteen concert," Gary told Addie, and then, when he got closer and saw most of the kids were nearer to her age than his, he said, "Okay, maybe 'N Sync." They weren't dressed for a concert, though. They were dressed for Halloween; most of them looked to be sweltering in pointed hats and graduation robes, striped scarves and fake glasses. Gary kept a hand cupped around the back of Addie's head to shield her from the broomsticks, magic wands, and owl puppets the kids waved as they talked and shouted--mostly shouted. They were already so wound up, he wasn't surprised they could get whipped into a frenzy. He just wanted to know who'd be stupid enough--or cruel enough--to do it. 

Where to start? He needed to find an adult who was in charge of this mob. A few parents stood talking to each other, gathered around the mailbox and newspaper stands on the corner, but they didn't seem to be paying a whole lot of attention to the kids. He figured he'd have better luck with the people who ran the bookstore. He skirted the edge of the line, walking on the curb or in the street when knots of kids took up the width of the sidewalk. Along the way, he caught snatches of conversation:

"I've had mine reserved for _two months_."

"Why'd it take her so long to write?"

"I heard she ditched everything and started over three different times."

"Mom's letting me stay up all night to read."

"I'm reading all night no matter what my mom says! _Lumos_!"

When Gary finally reached the door, he angled his way between two groups of kids, still trying to keep Addie safe from knocks and bumps. He left Cat to its own devices. The furball would probably be right at home in this sea of chaos. "Excuse me." He reached for the door, but a broomstick landed on his arm.

"No cuts." At the other end of the broomstick was a boy with dark hair and thick-rimmed glasses, wearing one of the graduation robes and a red and gold scarf. 

"I'm not cutting." Gary clutched Addie tighter as a bunch of similarly costumed boys and girls, none of whom were much taller than his elbows, surrounded him. "I want to talk to someone who works here." 

"They don't open until midnight," one of the girls said.

"No, the costume contest is first, remember?" The boy still held the broomstick on Gary's arm, but he twisted around to argue with the girl. "They're going to let us in so they can announce the winners before the book goes on sale."

"Yeah, that's what I'm here for--the costume contest." Despite Gary's efforts, Addie pulled her head free of his hand and crowed at the kids, waving at them as if she'd just found her best friends.

"What are you supposed to be, some kind of muggle?" asked a boy in white with an owl mask on top of his head. "You can't enter a costume contest without a costume!"

"Let me tell you something, kid, I--"

"Hey." A man about Gary's age, Starbucks cup in hand, pushed his way into the group. "You bothering these kids?"

"It's okay, Dad, I got it," said the boy with the broomstick.

"They've been waiting two years for this book. If you didn't reserve a copy, you have to go to the end of the line and take your chances."

"I don't want to read that book!"

"Then why are you lining up for it in the middle of the night?"

"Look, I want to talk to someone in the bookstore." Gary went for a sheepish smile and an Addie bounce, hoping it would make him look like less of a threat. Apparently it only worked on nurses on break, because the dad didn't waver.

"Back of the line, buddy." He jerked his thumb toward the end of the block. "Or I'm calling the cops."

Every once in a while, in the middle of trying to erase a story from the paper, Gary found himself wondering if what he was doing would turn out to be the cause of the problem. This felt like one of those times--a bunch of hyped-up kids and a defensive parent, and him with Addie to protect. Even the sight of her holding out Fred, offering to share it with the other kids, wasn't diffusing the situation.

"Okay, okay, I'm going."

"I'm sure things will move fast once they open the doors," the dad said, saluting him with his coffee cup.

"That's what I'm afraid of," Gary muttered.

By now, the line had stretched around the corner and halfway down that block. Gary stepped in behind a gaggle of girls who looked to be not quite old enough for high school. Two of them wore the standard black robes, one with long hair standing out from her head in frizzy corkscrew curls, the other with hers pulled back in a sleek, severe ballerina bun. The third girl had robes that were a different color--blue or purple, it was hard to tell with streetlamp light--and a white wig and beard. They took one look at Gary and started whispering and giggling. He waited until one of them looked his way to say, "Hello." Maybe he could get off on a better foot with them.

The one with the ballerina bun gave him a frank look, up and down, then pointed at Addie. "Isn't she a little young for Harry Potter books?"

"I read them to her." At her pursed mouth and lifted brow, an arch look that could give Brigatti a run for her money, he added, "Actually, we're here for the costume contest." Anything to get in the store a little earlier. 

"You don't have a very good costume," said the bearded girl. "I mean, you're almost tall enough to make me believe you're half-giant, but Hagrid has a beard."

"Like yours?"

"She's _Dumbledore_ , of _course_." Ballerina Bun shook her head. "Hagrid's beard isn't white. I thought you said you'd read the books."

"Yeah, well, it's been a while." 

Addie held out Fred to the girls. "Ah! Goo!"

"Is she saying hi?" said the girl with the beard. 

"Sure," Gary said.

"Hi!" She pulled her beard away from her face and smiled at Addie. "I'm Meg."

"Ba!" Addie told her. 

Ballerina Bun tilted her head to the side. "She could be baby Harry. Like in _Sorcerer's Stone_."

"You mean _Philosopher's Stone_ , Ariel. We agreed to use the British titles," said the girl with the frizzy curls. "But yeah, I see what you mean. She has the hair for it. She just needs a scar." 

"No she doesn't!" That was the last thing Gary needed, to bring Addie home wounded. 

The girls didn't even seem to hear him. "It'd be like the beginning of the first book," Ariel Ballerina Bun said. "When McGonagall and Dumbledore go to the Dursleys' house and Hagrid brings baby Harry to live with them, which I _still_ don't understand." 

The only Harry Potter character Gary'd ever heard of was Harry Potter, and he was pretty sure he wasn't an eight-month-old girl. "Now, wait a minute--" 

Meg pulled her beard back onto her chin. "It's perfect! There'll be a hundred Hermiones--sorry, Shayda--but nobody else will be McGonagall and Dumbledore with a real baby Harry!" 

Shayda--the gymnast, the one whose leg was about to be broken--shrugged. "I'm still the best Hermione they've got." She tweaked Fred's bill, making Addie giggle. "There's no platypus in Harry Potter."

"I don't know about this," Gary said. Getting into the store via the costume contest was one thing, especially since he'd be with Shayda, and be able to keep her from getting hurt, but he wasn't sure about using Addie to do it. Maybe he should try the front of the line again--but at that moment, the chatter around them went up a couple notches, and kids started straightening robes and hats. 

Ariel darted up to the corner and back in about two seconds. "They're coming! They're pulling the best costumes out of line for the contest! Come on, mister, please? Meg and Shayda are certified babysitters, and--"

"Crookshanks!" Shayda exclaimed. She bent down and came up with Cat in her arms. "Oh, I'll be the _perfect_ Hermione!" 

"That's my--" Gary began, but Cat purred so loud he could hear it over the noise of the kids and traffic. He looked toward the corner, where a pair of women in costumes like the kids' were talking to a group of--were those supposed to be chess pieces? Maybe this was Cat's way of telling him it was okay to go along with the girls' plan. He turned away from them and pulled the paper out of his back pocket, trying to rifle through it one-handed while Addie waved Fred in his face. Nothing new, nothing about any harm coming to Addie, and it was still four kids who were going to get hurt. Including Shayda.

"Okay." He turned back to the girls. "How do I make her look like Harry Potter?" 

Ariel pulled a makeup pencil out from under her robes. "I'll do the scar. We'll need your shirt."

By the time the bookstore employees reached their spot in the line, Ariel had drawn a lightning bolt on Addie's forehead and wrapped her up in Gary's oxford. "I'm going in with you," he told the girls as he handed Addie over to Meg. 

Shayda, still cradling Cat, looked him up and down. "You know, in the t-shirt and jeans--if he loses the hat, he could be Sirius."

"I _am_ serious." The girls, including Addie, giggled. "I'm not leaving Ad--my daughter. Where are your parents, anyway?" 

Ariel waved toward a parking lot across the street. "Mom's in the van. Probably asleep. I'm supposed to call her on the cell if I need anything."

Even the kids had cell phones now. Good thing Marissa wasn't there, or he'd get another lecture about him needing one to keep up with the modern world. He shoved the paper in one back pocket and Fred in the other. "You got her okay?" he asked Meg.

She nodded and grinned so big he could see it under the beard--which Addie, of course, was trying to chew on. "Ready, _Minerva_?" she asked Ariel. 

"Of course, my _dear_ Albus."

They were the final group to be pulled out of line by the ladies from the bookstore. "Hey, I want to talk to you about security," Gary said, trailing behind the group as they hurried toward the entrance. "These kids are all wound up. You never know what can happen."

The women either didn't hear him or decided not to bother with a response as they swam through the chaos--right past the kids who had sent him to the back of the line--and into the store. There was a different line inside; the most elaborately costumed kids surrounded a roped-off square that contained a slightly raised platform. The kids, singly and in pairs, took turns parading across the platform while employees and parents took pictures. Gary hovered behind the girls and alternated between checking on Addie and watching the front door for any disturbances. 

"Hey--" He grabbed at the sleeve of a kid, probably younger than Patrick, in yet another wizard costume and a bookstore nametag. "Look, you have to get some crowd control in here. And out there," he added, pointing at the door. "These kids are about to get out of hand."

"Dude, they're book nerds, not Hell's Angels." The boy shook off Gary's hand. "The only way they'll freak out is if I don't open the boxes fast enough." He headed off for the back of the store.

Gary lifted his ball cap long enough to rub the sweat off his hair. Looked like he'd have to jump in whenever the rioting started and hope he could end it before anyone got hurt. And then he'd have to grab Addie and run home; the chances of Brigatti discovering they were gone went up every minute.

He turned back to the girls. Meg's arms were drooping a little, but she refused to hand Addie over. Addie "ba-ba"ed something at Gary, but for the life of him, he didn't know what she was trying to say. He tickled her under the chin and she giggled. 

"Harry wouldn't laugh the night his parents died!" Shayda whispered to the others. She had Cat slung over her shoulder like a sack of potatoes; nobody seemed to mind the live animal in the store. Cat had that effect on people, Gary'd noticed. Except for people named Toni Brigatti.

The girls--Gary was starting to think of him as _his_ girls--were the last ones up. They attempted British accents as they explained whatever part of the story they were meant to represent, and Addie babbled a bit and waved when Meg held her up. It probably ruined the effect the girls were going for, but it made everyone, including the judges, laugh. They'd just shooed the girls off the platform and stepped aside to consult with each other about awarding prizes when a big gong sounded over the store's loudspeakers. More workers opened the front doors and herded the hoard of kids toward the counters, trying to keep them in some semblance of a line. Half the kids looked like they needed the bathroom more than a book, the way they bounced around. 

Eyes out for any excitement that was about to turn nasty, Gary took a few steps toward the front of the store. A countdown started from thirty, growing louder with every number. The line for the books flowed between him and the costume contestants. Addie would be okay with the certified babysitters, he told himself, as long as he could find the source of the riot right the hell now. The thing was, everyone in the lines, kids and adults alike, looked equally happy and excited.

"Five! Four! Three!"

Cat flashed around his legs, headed for the front doors. "Hey!" Gary shouted. "Cat--" 

"Two! One!" A wild, inarticulate yell seemed to propel the line toward the stacks of books in front of the cash register. But then, as the first few books were being paid for, deeper shouts sounded from outside the store. Gary pushed his way through the crowd--any line had long since dissolved into chaos--as a trio of teenage boys wormed their way through the front doors, waving computer printouts.

"We've got your spoilers right here! Hot off the internet, straight from England!"

"Hagrid dies! Ron's wand backfires and he's sent to St. Mungo's mental hospital!" 

"Hermione falls in love with Draco!"

The last one elicited distressed screams from the younger kids. One little guy who couldn't have been more than seven burst into tears.

" _Arresto_!" Gary turned to find Shayda and Ariel pointing sticks--he supposed they were meant to be wands--at the boys. " _Immobulus_!" Shayda shouted, and charged forward.

Gary caught her around the waist, a few dozen pounds of tiny, muscled fury. "Hold on, I got it." He set her down behind him and pushed his way through the crowds to the boys. He grabbed the arm of the one waving the printout. "Cool it, what's wrong with you?"

"It isn't even true, geez," said his pimple-faced friend. "We're just having fun."

"That makes it worse." Gary released the kid's arm, and a chorus of, "Trolls! Trolls! Trolls in the dungeon!" broke out behind him. "This is your idea of fun? Getting a bunch of kids hurt? Get out of here."

"We gotta buy a book," the third boy yelled over the chorus.

"Not tonight." Gary pointed out the door. "Go!" 

One look at the chanting, advancing crowd, and the three boys exchanged resigned looks and left. Wild cheering chased them out the door. Gary turned back to the store, hoping that if he needed a story to explain himself it would come to him as he spoke, but it wasn't him the kids were cheering. Up on the costume contest platform, his girls were jumping up and down and squealing--Addie, bouncing around in Meg's arms, loudest of all. Ariel stood next to Meg, her arms full of books and a plastic cauldron.

"Where's the cat?" Shayda asked him as they joined the others at the roped-off area. 

Gary shrugged. He pulled Fred out of his pocket and held it out to her. "Want a platypus instead?"

"Oh, there he is!" Shayda crouched down and clapped toward one of the tables of books on the store's periphery. "Here, kitty!"

"Da!" Addie lunged toward Fred, too fast for Meg. Gary dove under the ropes and got a hand--the hand holding Fred--under her before she hit the floor. She bounced against his arm and landed with her head on Fred's furry stomach. 

For a half second the entire bookstore seemed to go quiet around them; Addie stared at Gary, her eyes huge, and all he could think was if she was hurt, Brigatti would really, truly kill him. 

Then, as all the noise rushed back in to his own ears, it must have hit Addie, too. She drew in an endless breath, then let it out in a high-pitched wail. "Aw, bug, it's okay." Gary gathered her up and staggered back to his feet. "I've got you." 

All three girls stared at him with eyes wide as Addie's. "I'm so, so sorry!" Meg's beard hung down around her neck and her white wig was askew, revealing brown bangs. She picked up Fred and handed him to Addie. "She jumped."

"She's does that," Gary said. "You took good care of her. I appreciate that." Sniffling, Addie tucked herself around Fred, pulling handfuls of Gary's t-shirt under her body, and squeezed her eyes shut.

"This one's hers." Along with his shirt, Ariel handed him a book the size of a dictionary. "She won the contest for us."

"Okay, thanks." Maybe Addie would want to read it someday. He tucked the book and his shirt under his arm. Addie bunched herself up until her little butt stuck out like a basketball. "Will you girls be okay? I have to get her home." At their nods, he wrapped his arms tight around Addie and headed for the door.

"Don't forget your cat," Shayda called. She opened her arms and let Cat jump down. 

"Sometimes I wish I could," Gary muttered. "Not a word about this from either of you," he told Addie and Cat as they walked back through the dark streets. "What Brigatti doesn't know won't hurt her. Or me."

~*~*~*~

A hulking shadow lifted her, threw her off the balcony. Her body knifed through the air, toward the murky river--

\--No. It wasn't real. Sick of nightmares, Toni pushed herself through the sensation of flying and crashing and sat upright. 

It took her another few seconds to remember where she was, and why. The room was nearly dark, utterly silent except for her own quick breaths. She groped at the nightstand for the gun--not her gun, but she needed to know where it was.

"Hobson," she muttered when all she found was the clock. Its glowing numbers, two-fourteen, illuminated the glossy, thoroughly empty surface of the nightstand. Hobson had said something about putting the gun away. The last time she woke up. And pointed it at him. 

She checked the drawer and there it was--the wrong shape, it didn't fit her hand, but the weight of it slowed her breath. The sound it made when she set it down on the nightstand echoed weirdly in the quiet room. By this time her eyes had adjusted to the dark. No Addie-shaped lump in the crib, not even her blanket.

She swung her feet to the floor, swallowing a moan when a sharp pain crossed her forehead and another, duller ache woke up in her shoulder. Muscles she'd never known she possessed protested as she made her way down the hall. 

A light over the kitchen island cast a glow that just reached the sofa, where Hobson, still in jeans and a t-shirt, slumped low with his head tipped back against the sofa and his mouth gaping open. Classy. Like his tennis-shoed feet propped on the glass top of the coffee table. 

Addie lay flat-out on his chest as though she'd just completed a belly flop. Hobson had one arm draped over her, the other stretched out along the back of the sofa. Fred was tucked under his chin, acting as a pillow for Addie.

Toni took a couple of breaths, reveling in the relief of knowing Addie was okay--that she'd been okay ever since this whole thing started. She had to start trusting Hobson--or rather, she had to acknowledge she'd trusted him all along. She turned back for the hall, but a frisson down her spine made her look back. 

Something was off. Hobson's shoes _weren't_ off, for one thing, even though he'd taken off his oxford and left it in a bunch on the floor. One of the key cards Paul had left for them sat on the coffee table. She started toward him, determined to wake him up and ask what was going on, when the air shifted--in a closed room, with no open windows--and Hobson's cat leaped onto the sofa. 

"What the hell?" she whispered. Her nose tickled at the sight of the thing, but she stepped close enough to brush it off the sofa. "Shoo, scat." As it jumped, the tip of its tail brushed Addie's toes.

Addie stirred, pushed off Hobson's chest, and blinked at Toni. The faint ray of light from over the island caught a dark smudge on her forehead. Toni sat gingerly on the edge of the couch, licked her thumb, and ran it over the smudge. She peered at the greasy residue. Was it makeup? Some kind of paint? 

Addie reached over and closed her fist around Toni's thumb, then pulled it under her stomach, trapping Toni's hand between her own little body and Hobson's chest. She let out a contented, heavy sigh as she closed her eyes again. 

"Oh, bug." She tried to tug her hand free, but Addie snuggled down and clutched tighter at her thumb. "Hobson?" Toni whispered. There was a catch, a hesitation in the rise and fall of his chest, but he didn't stir. His face was almost entirely shadowed, but she thought she saw the corners of his mouth twitch. 

She ought to kick his ass. Whatever he'd done, he no doubt deserved it. She ought to take more aspirin for the headache he was prolonging. She ought to go back to bed. 

Instead, she tucked her legs under her, scooting closer to ease the tension in her arm, and rested her head on the back of the couch. She was halfway to sleep when Hobson curled his arm around her shoulders.

"Subtle," Toni muttered. "Don't think I'm not on to you."

"Shhh." He shifted himself closer to her. "Baby's sleeping."

What the hell. Toni leaned onto Hobson's arm and let herself relax. It was just for a few minutes, she told herself; just until Addie let go of her hand and Hobson went back to sleep. Just until she knew the nightmares were gone for good.

~*~*~*~

The bang of cookware startled Toni into morning, though the blanket on top of her and the pillow under her head muffled it. She stretched out a foot--no sheets. Sofa. How'd she end up on the--oh, yeah. Hobson. What the hell had she been thinking, falling asleep on top of him?

It would be so much easier to stay where she was, hidden from regrets and whatever Hobson's reaction and assumptions would be, but Addie's laugh reminded her she was on the job, a job she strongly suspected Hobson of running out on the night before. She swung her feet to the floor. Full awareness--and memory--slammed back into her body. The headache was duller now, but her shoulder throbbed and the percussion of being thrown around a hotel room still resonated through her bones. She pulled the blanket around her and shuffled to the bank of windows.

She could tell it was early; the microwave was too far away for her allergy-puffed eyes to read its clock, but the rising sun cast long shadows on the cars and people who scurried around below. When she rested a palm against the glass, heat leaked into her skin. A real scorcher, her dad would have said, and she was glad she wouldn't have to deal with it. Thank goodness for air conditioning and privacy. Thank goodness for Paul Armstrong.

She turned around and leaned back, letting the window's warmth ease the ache in her shoulder. Over at the stove, Hobson put on a performance for Addie, who sat in the high chair an arm's length from the range. While Addie chortled, he stirred something in a cheerful yellow pottery bowl, tossed a bit of butter into the skillet on the stove, and ladled batter into it. 

And hummed. God help her, he was humming. The tune was just this side of familiar, but too mangled for her to pinpoint. Just when she thought she had a handle on it, it shifted out of reach. Kind of like Hobson himself.

He broke off humming to tell Addie, "You'll like these way better than that mushy stuff from the jar. Too bad we don't have blueberries. I make a mean blueberry pancake. My mom, she thinks hers are the best, but I've perfected them." 

Addie banged her spoon on the tray. Evidence of the mushy stuff--orange--dotted her brown curls and stained her sleeper. Peaches, Toni guessed. Must have been quite a battle, and somehow she'd slept through it. "Gagaba!" Addie yelled. 

Hobson chucked her under the chin. "Have to be patient." He lifted the edge of a pancake. "Can't give my best girl raw breakfast."

It was all so oddly normal. With his sleep-mussed hair sticking up in clumps, still in his wrinkled t-shirt and jeans, Hobson was comfortable in that kitchen, as if he were used to a family routine. Toni'd become comfortable with it again, ever since she'd been protecting Rachel and Addie, but she'd had a lot more practice handling babies in her lifetime than Hobson. Still, here he was, making pancakes and entertaining an eight-month-old as if he'd been born to do it. If it weren't for the job and its dangers, if it weren't for Hobson's full-throttle weirdness at the most inappropriate times, Toni would have...

What, exactly?

She pulled the blanket tighter around her and pushed those thoughts away. After all, Hobson was the last person she'd slap a 'normal' label onto, especially after what he'd told her the day before. On the other hand, maybe his weirdness wasn't so weird--or at least, if he believed what he'd told her about that newspaper, his weirdness was--well, weirdly explainable. In a weird way.

She was still trying to decide how much of it _she_ believed. Her grandmothers would have told her it made sense. Hobson's story about his newspaper reminded her of Nonna Sylvia's saint stories, the ones where miracles made believers out of even the most skeptical Roman soldiers. If she would let herself believe, and squinted hard, she could make the scattered, definitely not-normal pieces of Gary Hobson add up to something. Whatever they added up to, though, Hobson wasn't a saint. Not in that t-shirt.

"Hey, you're up." Grinning like a dope, he waved the spatula at her. Apparently he wasn't embarrassed by last night's sleeping arrangements.

"Perceptive," she said drily, and, to stop him staring, added, "Your pancakes are burning."

He whirled back to the stove. Toni dropped the blanket on the sofa and scooted by Hobson to get a paper towel. She wet it in the sink, brushing so close--so comfortably close--to Hobson she could smell the night before on him: sweat and baby and cat and, well, Hobson. So close he lifted his eyebrows when goosebumps popped up on her arms. "Air conditioning," she muttered, and wrung out the paper towel.

The creases around his eyes deepened. "How'd you sleep?" 

"Okay."

He turned away, but not before his lips had skewed into a shit-eating grin. He was better at those than his peanut-butter-and-jelly façade would suggest. "Just...'okay'?"

So he hadn't forgotten. "You're pushing it, Hobson," she countered, not even bothering to hide her own grin. He let out a half-laugh and reached for the coffee maker.

She ducked by him again and set to work on Addie's hair and the weird, greasy smudge on her forehead, a task made nearly impossible by Addie's attempts to suck peach slop stickiness off the paper towel. 

"Oh, sure, now she'll eat it," Hobson said. Addie laughed at Toni and thumped the tray with her little fists. For the moment, at least, she was enjoying this game, instead of missing her mom, instead of being in the clutches of Guyette and his thugs. It made up for a lot of aches and pains.

"You okay now, bug?" She kissed the top of Addie's head. Turned, paper towel in hand, to look for a trash can, and instead found Hobson closer than she'd expected, too close to move, and both of them far too aware of how close they were. "Hobson--"

"My name's Gary," he rasped, still with the shit-eating grin. 

She touched the sticky orange patch on his cheek, and more goosebumps popped on her arms. "Gary." She supposed she owed him at least an attempt at his first name. "You have peaches on your face." Addie banged on her tray, but he caught Toni's hand before she could turn around. 

"She's fine. All strapped in," Hobson--Gary--breathed. 

Toni breathed, too, and for once, for a breath, she let the shivers course through her. She let herself be conscious of everything: their bare feet a centimeter apart on the tiled floor, the topography of his stubbled cheeks, her tank top's smooth strap, which had slipped off her shoulder, rising and falling with her breath. But she had a job to do, and it didn't include losing herself in her cover story.

She closed her eyes to shut out _his_ eyes--determined, pleading, clear brown-green--and squeezed the paper towel until peach goop oozed between her fingers. "I can't do this right now."

She wobbled when he stepped back, but he did step back, crestfallen. Duty kept her upright, carried her the half-step back to Addie's chair, where she toyed with a damp curl.

Hobson's long fingers played on the handle of the spatula. "It's the paper, isn't it?"

"What are you talking about?" 

"You don't want to--" He cleared his throat. "--because of my whole thing with the paper and--" He broke off at her incredulous stare. What did he think she would do, turn around and ditch him the minute he told her his secret? Whether or not his newspaper was really magic, she didn't for a second doubt he believed it himself. He misread the stare, too, and asked, "You remember what I told you yesterday?"

"Why do you think I still have a headache?" 

She'd meant to tease him, to share a joke, but messed up the delivery somehow. He shook his head, went back to the stove, and flipped pancakes onto a plate. "Do you even believe me? Now that you're not--" He waggled his fingers at his temple.

"Like I said, I still have the headache. But that doesn't mean I've forgotten anything." She watched Addie drum on the tray while Hobson tore a pancake into bite-sized pieces. If it wasn't for that paper, wherever it came from, where would Addie be now? Not giggling and waiting on pancakes. "Look, when you're brought up Catholic, you end up believing all kinds of strange things. You start to think the whole world's a story, because your faith is all these stories--Noah and Jesus and saints--and in stories, anything can happen."

He started at that, some of his hopefulness coming back. "But I'm also a cop," she reminded him. "And while I've seen some weird stuff on the job, this is a lot to take in. I'm getting there, but it might take a while."

He considered her, then nodded. With a quick glance at the clock on the microwave--it was a little after seven, and that seemed to be what made his frown return--he ladled more batter onto the skillet. "Believe me, I know it sounds ridiculous. Half the time I don't believe how I let myself be led around by the nose by that thing. Lately I thought maybe it could work. I could have a normal life, or at least--at least someone--and kids." He flashed a grin at Addie, and she stuck out her tongue at him. "But maybe it doesn't work that way. It didn't for Lucius Snow," he added under his breath.

"Who's--you know what, never mind." He was headed for feeling-sorry-for-himself territory, and Toni couldn't have him there. The guy was too good a brooder. "I wasn't talking about your paper when I said I couldn't do this. Wasn't even thinking about it, until you reminded me. I meant I can't--we can't--be doing stuff like kissing."

He lifted the plate of pancake debris and blew on it, while Addie reached her arms toward him with a whiny grunt. "Not in front of the kid, you mean?"

She rolled her eyes and took a step back from the chair, giving Hobson room to feed Addie. "We have a job to do here, and kissing can lead to...to further distractions."

Plate halfway to Addie's tray, he froze, his look unreadable. "You find me distracting?"

"Sometimes."

A slow smile--a real one--pushed up the corners of his mouth. "I can work with that." He put the plate on Addie's tray and offered her a piece of pancake; she bobbed forward and chomped it up. 

Toni sighed at her sticky hands and the lumpy, damp, former paper towel. "We need to talk about your newspaper and what you did with it last night--" Hobson glanced up from feeding Addie with a look that was equal parts guilt and relief. "--but that's a separate conversation from this one, and I'm going to take a shower first."

"Okay, uh...I'll make breakfast. For us, I mean. And, uh, Toni--" He stopped, cringed.

"What is your problem now?"

"Sorry, it's just the first time I called you that--"

"My name?" she asked drily.

"You slammed me into a wall." He took half a step back, as if he expected her to do it again.

"Because I thought you were in league with a jewel thief. Which you were."

"Yeah, but I wasn't _involved_ with her, not like you thought. And I said I was sorry. I let you hit me."

He'd deserved it, giving her that dopey, half-afraid grin in the synagogue right after she'd crawled her way out of a basement that might as well have been a serial killer's lair. The same dopey, half-afraid grin he was giving her now. "You let me get kidnapped, Hobson."

He didn't miss the emphasis she put on his last name; he cringed almost as much as when he'd let her first name slip. "I sent flowers afterward!" 

And he still called her Brigatti unless they were in the middle of a crisis. Maybe she really did scare him. Good. "I'm going to get cleaned up," she said, forcing back the impulse that came from God-knew-where to tell him it was all right, that as long as they were basically living together they might as well be on a first name basis. "Hobson" was a lot more fun to yell than "Gary" ever would be. She flashed him what she hoped was a dangerous look. "Don't burn my pancakes."

A few minutes in the shower, alone with her thoughts, were enough to bring back not only the night before, but the day as well and remind her why he might have thought things between them were changing: how he'd started to tell her something important that afternoon, then dashed out to the pool for shoes and come back with a newspaper in a complete panic. He'd known what was coming, who was coming. He'd known what the guy twice her size who'd barreled into the room had in mind. 

She twisted, trying to check out the bruise that spread over her shoulder like a football player's protective pads. If Hobson hadn't been there, if he hadn't come back when she'd told him to go, if he hadn't known--or believed he'd known--what was about to happen to her, to Addie, to himself, she had no idea where she'd be today. Where Addie would be. Nowhere good. And yet, how was she supposed to trust him, when he ran out on them in the middle of the night? It wasn't his newspaper perpetuating her headache. It was Hobson.

There were clothes for her in one of the plastic bags. Fairly mom-ish, but then, Meredith was a mom, and Toni was pretending to be one. She chose a teal t-shirt and a pair of capris that didn't fit perfectly, but were blessedly clean, and pulled her hair into a ponytail. 

She found the kitchen island set with cups of coffee and plates of pancakes, each with a melting pat of butter and a sprinkle of sugar. Hobson sat feeding bits of his pancake to Addie even though her tray was covered with the remains of the first one. When Toni sat down next to him, he slid a book as thick as a brick toward her. "First of all, Addie's fine, you can see that, right?" he said before she could get her mouth open.

Toni crossed her arms. Here, at least, they were on familiar ground." _Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire_? You snuck out while I was asleep."

He set his jaw and nodded.

"You _left Addie_."

The corners of his mouth gathered in disgust and he stabbed at a pancake with his fork. "You think I'd leave her alone with you waving a gun at everything that moved? I figured she was safer at the bookstore. With me."

Toni'd nearly forgotten waking in the dark, out of a nightmare into the sounds of someone sneaking past her, fumbling for her weapon, pointing it at Hobson, at Addie...maybe he was right.

"She won the book in the costume contest." Hobson rubbed his thumb over the smudge Toni hadn't quite been able to get off Addie's forehead, then defiantly stuck a forkful of pancake in his mouth. "Apparently she makes a good Baby Harry Potter. So yeah, we went, and we brought you a present. Back in the hotel you said you were bored with nothing to read."

She snorted. "And now you're trying to bribe me with a book?" She'd been planning to read it; she'd gotten hooked on the series by reading the first one to her nephews and nieces. 

"Actually, I thought the pancakes would seal the deal. Are they working?"

"No." To be fair, they were amazing pancakes: fluffy middles, crisp edges, buttery and decadent. But she wasn't going to tell him that. "The point is, you promised not to go."

"I promised to put Addie first, to keep her safe, and I did." He waved his fork toward a mug at the other end of the island, next to the files Winslow had sent. "I even left you a note."

Stretching almost off her stool, she nabbed the scrap of newspaper next to the mug. She could barely make out Hobson's chicken scratch. "Taking her out in the middle of the night is not--"

"I had to go. There were kids who would have been hurt. Including a couple of girls who helped me out with Addie."

She nearly choked on her coffee. "You let _kids_ take care of her?" 

"They were certified babysitters!"

Toni took in a breath to let him have it; reached for the book to slam it down or make a point or--she didn't even know. But Addie had gone still, bits of pancake in both hands as she stared at them. For Toni and Hobson, this was a kind of game--granted, Hobson had changed the playing field, and maybe even the whole sport, with his revelation--but Addie didn't know that. Toni let out the breath. Lifted her hand off the book, so she wouldn't be so tempted to whack Hobson over the head with it. 

"You could have been seen," she said in a lower, but still dangerous, voice. "You could have been followed. She could have been hurt."

"She wasn't!" Clueless as always, Hobson didn't tone it down. Addie squeezed her pancake bits into mush. "And neither were those kids." He stomped over to the sofa and extracted the newspaper he'd been carrying around yesterday from the cushions. Stomped right back and thrust it at her. "See? The story's changed."

"You think I remember what was there before?" The thought he might have bought another newspaper from a corner stand--maybe when he was parading a protected witness around Chicago in the middle of the night--crossed her mind. But she didn't really believe Hobson was that devious. Sure, he'd been lying to her for over a year, but he'd never been particularly good at it, and none of his tells--the stutter, the overly sincere expression, the bullshit spun from thin air --were in evidence now. Truth be told, he looked pissed.

"Look, Brigatti, this is my job. Like it or not, I got picked to do this, and I can't just let things happen. It always turns out badly if I do."

"Bah!" Addie threw a wad of pancakes at Hobson. 

"I want her safe as much as you do," he insisted.

"Right." Toni wasn't going to win this one. She knew it, and part of her liked it. Not losing, but Hobson standing up for himself, for his choices. When he got like that, she could believe it was a good thing they kept tripping over each other. Still, Addie was ready to let loose an unhappy howl. Toni slid off the stool and went to unbuckle her from the high chair. "She doesn't like it when we fight."

"Neither do I."

"Could've fooled me." She gave Addie a couple bounces, not quite meeting Hobson's gaze as he worked his jaw. "So, you get a prophetic newspaper and it's your job to fix things. I guess the question is--"

"Where the hell is it?" he groused.

"What are we supposed to do when your job gets in the way of mine?" Toni finished at the same time.

"It won't." 

Her sharp laugh made Addie jump. "It already has." 

"Whatever you think of it, whatever you think of me, that paper has helped you out more than once, you know. You have a dangerous job, and sometimes you--you need looking out for."

Had he forgotten how they'd met? "I could say the same about you."

"You want to look out for me? Even though this thing makes me a freak?"

"I didn't say it made you a freak." She'd already known that about him. But knowing he could see his own death and run toward it to protect people, especially Addie, how could that turn her off? She just couldn't afford to let it turn her on, not right now. She started down the hall, but he didn't follow. "I'm going to give Addie a bath."

Addie burbled with delight at the sight of the tub. She wiggled out of her sleeper when Toni unzipped it and laughed when she sat her down in the shallow water. "What are we going to do with you?" Toni knelt next to the tub and leaned close enough to touch her nose to Addie's, risking, and getting, a pair of pancake-crusted fists in her hair. So much for the ponytail. "What are we going to do with _him_?"

A faint double beep sounded. It just had time to register before Hobson called her name. "It's the security thing," he added oh-so-helpfully. 

She scooped Addie out of the bath, wrapping a towel around her as she dashed down the hall, and found Hobson staring wide-eyed at the elevator. "I didn't do it! It beeped and then the elevator started up."

"That can't happen." But the elevator had already reached the seventh floor. 

"Could it be someone going to another floor?"

"That shouldn't have activated our security panel." She checked the camera feed to the lobby--empty. 

"Is it Armstrong?"

Paul was supposed to be escorting Rachel to the courthouse. Toni thrust Addie at Hobson. "Take her, get in the bedroom. Hide!" she commanded, pushing him ahead of her down the hall. Addie's lower lip trembled, and there was a bluish tinge around her mouth. She shoved Hobson into the bedroom. "Don't let her cry. Dry her off and keep her warm," she commanded, pushing past him and lunging for the nightstand. She yanked the drawer open and pulled out the Browning. "This time, stay put until I call you." 

Hobson curved his hand around Addie's towel-covered head and nodded.

The security panel showed the elevator on the fourteenth floor and rising. Toni opened the door to the foyer, shifted into a shooting stance in the doorframe, forced herself to breathe past her pounding heart and throbbing headache. She wouldn't fire until she knew for sure, in case Hobson was right and it was Paul. But it wouldn't be Paul.

The elevator beeped as it arrived. "Don't move!" she commanded as the doors slid open. No one was there. 

A hundred scenarios ran through her head: it was malfunctioning, this was a trap, someone had started up and gotten off on the wrong floor--

"Meow."

She looked down.

" _Hobson_!"

He skidded into the foyer. "Brigatti, what--" He knocked her gun arm down, sending an arrow of pain through her shoulder. "Don't shoot my cat!"

"Ow!" She spun around, leaned on the wall next to the security system for support, sucked in air between her teeth. "Crap, Hobson! You said your cat could take care of itself." 

Hobson reached down and yanked a copy of the _Chicago Sun-Times_ out from under the dander-shedding bandit. "'Bout time," he muttered at the cat. He straightened up and saw her clutching her shoulder. "Sorry."

"Where's Addie?"

"She's fine, she's in the crib." He waved the newspaper at the cat, who sat watching them placidly. "This is what he does, I told you."

"No you didn't." She was pretty sure she'd remember if Hobson had told her his magic newspaper was delivered by his cat. Then again, they'd been on the run from homicidal mob-backed kidnappers, so maybe it hadn't registered.

A "this is not naptime" cry rang out, and the cat darted down the hall. "You wanted evidence; read it for yourself." Hobson tossed the paper at her and followed his cat. Toni sank down on the sofa with the paper and checked the date: July 9, 2000. It didn't do her much good, since she still wasn't sure what the real date was. The front page story was something about the upcoming presidential election, the kind of thing that could belong to just about any day over the past--or future--few months. 

Hobson came back with an indignant Addie, still wrapped in her towel and clutching Fred as she grunted her frustration. He set her on the floor, where she kicked off the towel and squealed at the cat, crawling toward it buck naked.

"Your cat brings you the newspaper?" Toni asked, to make sure she had his story straight.

He sat on the arm of the sofa. "That's not the important thing. See the date?" He was like a school kid, showing his mom his art project. 

She crushed the edges of the newspaper in her fists. If this was real, she'd have to believe him when he told her what would happen. Whether it was convenient or not. "I see the date. I see the headlines. I see the cat who somehow circumvented a private, high-security entrance--or do I see the guy who did it for him?"

"How would I have done that?"

"Time and opportunity, Hobson. I was giving Addie a bath."

"I didn't have time for that, and it's not like I have any help. You're the only one who knows where I am. Well, you and Addie. And Armstrong. And you know he didn't have anything to do with this."

She laughed at the thought, then swallowed against a faint scratchiness in her throat. "Pretty sure you and your weirdness is the last thing he's worried about." It better be, since he had Rachel to protect. "So you get this newspaper when your cat decides to bring it to you." She shot a look at the cat, currently pawing at Fred while Addie sucked on his--the cat's--tail and dug her toes into his fur. "And then you --what? Make a plan to save the world?"

"I wouldn't say I plan much. Usually I just run from one thing to another, unless Marissa has a better idea."

Of course Marissa knew; if Toni had thought about it for a hot second she would have already concluded that. Marissa kept Hobson's secrets even when Toni asked her directly what was going on; more than once she'd opened her mouth and shut it with a shake of her head. She'd never dropped the slightest hint it was anything this strange. "She believes this?" After all, she never could have seen proof.

The worried furrows across his forehead eased. "Believed it before I did, really. Or at least, she was the first one who..." He stopped and shook his head. "She knew what it was for."

_The first one_ , he'd said. "Who else knows?" 

For a split second, he looked a little lost. "No one who's here anymore. Look, I know it's not very organized, or structured, or..."

"Believable?" she filled in, though once she got past the aspects of his story that could have been invented by J. K. Rowling herself, it wasn't unlike a lot of her days: show up at the precinct, start in on paperwork until some new case called her out into the city. Then there were times like the past couple weeks, when she lived on someone else's schedule. Surprising what dictators little kids could be. Especially ones who chewed on the tails of supremely patient cats. She rubbed her nose, even though it really wasn't all that itchy.

"Yeah. But it works for me. Except for times when the stories are written wrong. Mistakes, or--" He looked sidelong at her. "-- someone does it on purpose. " 

She stared at him for a few seconds, feeling a faint _click, click, click_ in her brain as some old pieces fell into place. "Savalas and Arbethnot messed with the times of death as well as the causes. That's why they found you at the train yard with Scanlon's body. You tried to save him, but--"

"He was already dead, yeah."

She thought of the message he'd left on Scanlon's phone, her sick surety when she'd heard it that Paul was right and that Hobson--pancake-making, babysitting Hobson--was a murderer, even though he'd already saved her life more than once by that point. She'd doubted him because of a pair of lying, evil ferrets. And he'd still come back to save her life then--and now. "You should have told us."

"You wouldn't have believed me. I tried to tell your lawyer friend, but the paper didn't show up that morning, so he thought I was--you know."

He'd recommended a psych evaluation. "He thought you were desperate, that's all."

He gestured at the newspaper, still gripped tight in her hands. "Is there, uh, anything I need to do in there?"

"What you need to do is here," she said, but she turned pages anyway.

Hobson went to steady Addie, who'd pulled herself up via the coffee table and was reaching for a glass of water from the night before. He sat on the floor next to her, one hand on her back while she took sliding steps alongside the table. "I usually start with the Metro section. Doesn't she need a diaper or something?"

"She needs to finish her bath. Hold on." Too fascinated by the fact that she was holding a newspaper from the future to worry about any mess Addie might make, Toni turned pages until she found the local stories. A traffic jam, a robbery at a rare coin dealer, and a fight at a city park pool led the metro headlines; nothing too bad, until she turned another page and caught her breath.

"What?" Hobson looked up at her from his spot on the floor, and she knew she was in for a fight, even though she wasn't sure she wanted to fight him on this.

" _Toddler Hospitalized After Choking on Jingle Bell_ ," she read. "I know this is supposed to be early news, but isn't it a little soon for Christmas?"

Hobson sat up straight. "Let me see that."

She scanned the article for details. "A kid in a Baby Tune Time class swallows a loose bell on a bracelet. It won't kill him," she added, but handed the paper over.

"St. Matthew's...parent and babies class...choked and lost consciousness..." he muttered. He looked up, still with a hand on Addie's back. "Brigatti, this is a two-year-old. He's in a coma. I have to stop it."

She'd missed the part about the coma, but she had to try to talk him out of it. "St. Matthew's is three blocks from the station--from _my_ station. What if someone sees you?"

"They won't. I'll make sure Addie's hidden, keep her under a blanket or something."

"No. No way, Hobson, you are not taking her because you are not going anywhere."

"The only way I can even get in a room with a class like that is if I have a kid with me. It worked last night. It'll be okay."

"The hell it will! This is not the middle of the night. The streets are full of people, and you'll be a few blocks from a police station where half the force knows you on sight." If they saw him, Addie would end up in the wrong hands and--no. "You cannot play roulette with her life."

Hobson set his jaw. She knew that look. "He's in a coma. Jaime Powell, aged two."

"He's not going to die," she said, to herself as much as to Hobson. "Kids are resilient to accidents. Not to mob hits. You're not going to risk Addie's life, and yours, and mine, to stop a choking hazard, or a fight at a city pool, or a traffic jam."

"What?" He flipped a page and looked up at her with a wounded expression. "You didn't tell me about this stuff."

"Because you are not going to do anything about it."

"You don't know how this works."

"Not because I never asked!"

"If it's here, out of all the things that could be, it's important to save this kid. Maybe he'll grow up to be mayor. Maybe his parents' lives will fall apart if they lose him and they'll end up hurting each other, or someone else. There's a reason for these stories, and I need to do something about them." He turned a few pages. "There's nothing in here about Addie. Or you. Or me. That means I can stop that kid choking without us getting hurt."

"There wasn't anything about us yesterday morning, was there?"

"No, it changed later."

"Because you called Marissa. I don't want it to change again. You know, maybe the reason those stories are there is to teach you a little discipline, to make you think and make some choices about who you'll save."

"You think I don't make those kinds of choices every damn day? If it was Addie, wouldn't you go? This kid is someone else's Addie." He held the paper, folded so the jingle bell story was on top, out to her. The little kid in the picture had a blond buzz cut and a dimple on his chin. He wasn't all that adorable, nothing like Addie, but still--he was a toddler.

She took the paper and ran a thumb over the headline, smudging the edges of the letters. "You're not playing fair."

"We go down there for music class at ten, we save the boy, we come back here. I'll let the other stuff go."

No, he wouldn't. "What happens when it changes again? What happens when you decide you have to save Chicago from political corruption, or something equally--" She'd turned back to the front page to shove the stupid election story in his face, but--

\--but it wasn't there.

"Brigatti?" Hobson eased Addie back down to the floor and stood. "What is it?"

"Winslow," she said with the tiny bit of air that hadn't been punched out of her gut. His official headshot was on the front page, alongside a photo of the dive taco place where he grabbed lunch every day. Next to the station. Three blocks from St. Matt's.

" _Chicago Detective Critical After Drive-By Shooting_ ," Hobson read over her shoulder. To his credit, he sounded as shocked as she felt. "That's your partner."

"This thing--" The story shook. Her hands shook. Up until now, Hobson's freaky futuristic newspaper had been just that--a freaky, weird _thing_ , another one of his quirks. But this story was personal. It was horrible--or it would be, if it really happened. But it hadn't yet. Had it? "It's--" She couldn't find the right word.

"It's real." Hobson put a hand on her shoulder. "I'm sorry."

"Shit, Hobson, it's not your fault." It would be hers, if she let it happen. She had to do something. "But what--how--you see these stories every _day_?"

He took his hand off her shoulder, stepped around her and looked her right in the eye. "Yeah, I do. I see them, and then I stop them."

He stopped them. The shootings and the chokings and the robberies. She had no idea how many, but his serious expression told her the number was higher than even his sofa-cushion-thick police file had recorded. 

This one was hers to stop. It wouldn't have hit her so hard if it wasn't. She took a deep breath, tried to steady the newspaper so she could read the details. A drive-by, the article said. Ten-fifty-four. Two shots to the gut. Witnesses said it happened too fast to get a description of the shooter or his car. Ballistics would take a day or more to come in.

Winslow never got shot; the guy'd never even had a paper cut. She looked up at Hobson. "How do I do this? How do I stop it?"

" _We_ stop it. And the kid at the church, we stop him choking, too. They're practically on the same block. We can take care of both stories with one trip."

If they both went out, Addie would have to, too. She lay on her back on the rug, tickling the cat's belly. Toni hadn't sneezed since the furball had shown up. Her nose didn't even itch anymore. "I need to think. And Addie needs to finish her bath."

Hobson grabbed the paper the minute she set it on the table. "There's a way to fix this. All of it. I'm going to figure it out."

"You do that." Meanwhile, she'd think of a way to stop her partner getting shot. And stop her hands from shaking. Toni scooped up Addie and her towel and took her back to the tub.

"Jaime Powell might grow up to cure cancer," Hobson called after her. "If he's not in a coma."

"Just let me think." She plopped Addie in the tub and washed her down while she tried to figure out her next move. Her mind wanted to go to motive--who would shoot Winslow, and why?--but that was because she was used to dealing with crimes that had already happened. This was completely different. All she had was the _what_. But maybe that made it more straightforward. She didn't have to solve anything, she just had to stop it. Get Winslow out of the bullet's path and worry about the details afterward.

Addie squirmed and splashed half-heartedly. The water had gone cold. Toni lifted her out, toweled her off, and took her into the bedroom, trying to come up with a plan. Hobson would save that kid whether she wanted it or not. And it wasn't as if she wanted a kid hurt--or Winslow. She just didn't want Addie endangered in the process. If she made Hobson go to the church alone, she'd have to take Addie to the police station when she went after Winslow. Not happening. If Hobson took Addie to the church with him while Toni went to the station, he might get caught out by Guyette's people. They'd take Addie no matter how hard he fought. Also not happening. If Toni went with him, she could go right from the church to Taco Town and leave Addie with Hobson at St. Matthew's. Which would be easier to do if Hobson didn't know she was planning it.

Paul had brought clothes for Addie, including a frilly pink romper and matching sunhat Toni had seen on Grace at the department picnic. Rachel would have hated it, which made it a kind of disguise. Not much of one, though. When she looked up from buttoning Addie into the thing, Hobson stood in the bedroom doorway, watching her.

He probably wanted some kind of acknowledgement that his newspaper had freaked her out, but there wasn't time for it. She put a hand on Addie's stomach to stop her rolling off the bed. "When we go out there, I want us completely undercover. Hats. Sunglasses. Blanket. Everything we've got that makes us not look like--us."

"We're going?"

She sighed. She hated it, but--"If we can keep a little kid from getting hurt and take care of Winslow in the process, then yeah, we're going. As long as you stop smirking about getting your way."

"I'm not--" His grin widened. "I mean, not about getting my way."

"Then what is it?"

He pulled the backpack from the floor and dug through it. She guessed it was for something to wear. "You call him Winslow. He's your partner for a year and you still call him by his last name."

"So?"

"So you still call me Hobson. Maybe there's hope for us yet." He pulled a shirt out of the very bottom of the backpack.

"No plaid. If we are going on this ridiculous--" She almost said "mission," but they were not a trio of superheroes. "--whatever this is, we are going in disguise."

"It's my only clean shirt."

She picked up Addie and the sunhat and pushed past him into the hallway. "I don't care about clean. I care about anyone who's looking for you being able to spot you from a mile away because you always dress like an LL Bean model."

"But they won't notice the same shirt I've been wearing all week?"

"At the rate you're going, they'll smell you before they see you."

He shrugged and pulled out the last clean t-shirt from the package she'd bought. "So you're saying I have time for a shower?"

She snorted. There were about a million things she could say, several of which might ease the tension, but he'd pushed her into going out in the heat, with a baby no less. She kept her face stony. "I'm saying you're not setting foot out of this place without one."

~*~*~ *~ 


	8. Chapter 8

Gary had blown it. He wasn't sure how, exactly, but he had. Brigatti's back had gone up when she'd seen Winslow's picture on the front page, and now she was picking every fight she could. Not that she'd been much less prickly before. This wasn't the way her world was supposed to work, and she blamed him for changing it. It would be all too easy for her to decide, after they saved Jaime Powell and Winslow, that they were done. She would kick him, and the paper and the cat, to the curb, and get on with her life and her job, because it was too damned much to deal with, seeing someone she cared about plastered across the front page of the paper. 

"Did you have to pull that stunt with the elevator?" he asked Cat, who sat on the toilet waiting for him when he stepped out of the shower. He shrugged into the t-shirt, the jeans that still smelled of chlorine from the hotel's kiddie pool, and, since he couldn't wear the only clean shirt he possessed, the same wrinkled, smelly Oxford he'd been wearing since they left the loft. 

"She hates me, hates the paper, hates--well, she's never been too keen on you." On the other hand, she hadn't sneezed. Maybe she was still taking the Sudafed. 

When he went out to the living room, Brigatti was shoving the paper and the silver gun into the backpack, muttering things that ended with, "...magic newspaper," "...damn cat," and, "...of course it's Winslow." When he cleared his throat, she looked up. "I can't hide my holster under this shirt," she said, as if that explained everything. 

Gary was just glad Addie wasn't near the gun. She was trying to pull herself up on the glass door that led out to the balcony. Brigatti dropped the backpack and picked her up. Gary shoved his Cubs hat on his head. 

"Do I pass the secret disguise test?" he asked. 

"Hardly. But it'll have to do." She settled a pair of sunglasses over her eyes, and Addie grabbed onto the earpiece. 

"Those from Armstrong?" Gary guessed.

"Better than Santa." She glanced back at the clock.

He knew that was his signal to take Addie off her hands, but he took a minute to admire the view. They could have been mother and daughter. One very pissed-off mother, and one daughter who was about to be. "You guys look--you look good."

"Hah." Whether or not she believed him about the paper, she didn't believe _that_. She handed Addie to him and slung the backpack on her shoulder. "Let's go."

On the elevator ride down, she managed to tuck the blanket tight around Addie without touching Gary at all. "We have to hide in plain sight, you get that, right?" 

"I do this all the time," he told her. The doors opened, depositing them in the lobby. "It's not like I want to be noticed when I'm doing this stuff." 

"That," she pronounced, striding past the potted plants, "has never been your problem." She stopped at the door. "Lose the cat before we go out there."

"You're on your own, buddy." Gary nudged Cat back into the lobby with his foot. He knew Cat would follow them or find them if need be, but he wasn't going to send Brigatti off on another rant by telling her that.

Between struggling with a frustrated Addie and the brisk pace Brigatti set, Gary could barely keep up. But he didn't like the tense, undefined silence that surrounded them like a bubble. When he was sure no one walking in the same direction was near enough to hear, he asked, "How's your headache?" 

"It's fine."

"I think the aspirin's still in the--"

"It's _fine_." Right. And bacon was about to sprout wings, as Crumb would say. Half a block later, she asked, "How are your ribs?"

"What?"

"He kicked you, didn't he?"

The way she said "he"--Gary didn't like it. It was the way a little kid would refer to a monster under the bed, and Toni Brigatti wasn't supposed to be afraid of monsters. She was supposed to kick their asses, the way she'd done yesterday. If he'd had a hand free, he would have rubbed the irritated, itching patch above his right ear where the man had pressed the gun into his head. "My ankle's still a little sore, but otherwise I'm fine."

She gave a sharp nod. "Then keep up."

"Okay..." He drew it out, hoping she'd get the hint and talk to him, or at least give him some credit for trying, but she didn't respond. "The kid is named Jaime. Jaime Powell," he reminded her. Surely she wanted the details. "His mom gets distracted during the class by Jaime's little brother, and nobody notices the bell is loose. He puts it in his mouth, 'cause, well, you know, how kids--why are we turning here?" She'd just rounded the corner onto Huron. "It'd be faster to go straight up LaSalle."

"First rule of counter-surveillance, _Greg_." She didn't miss a step. "Never take the path they expect you to take."

"How can anyone expect us to be walking from that condo, where no one knows we are, to the church, where no one knows we're going?"

She stopped at a crosswalk and looked up at him. He was glad the sunglasses hid her eyes. Probably kept them from shooting laser beams his way. "Second rule. Always assume they know where you are and where you're going."

Under the blanket, Addie made little barking noises and squirmed. "Awful hot day for that, isn't it?" asked a woman who'd come up behind Gary. She looked to be his mom's age, and she had the grimly polite smile of a stranger who knew he was doing everything wrong.

"The baby's allergic to sun." Gary looked sidelong at Brigatti. He could do this undercover thing, too. But if she'd heard the exchange, she was pretending she hadn't. The light changed, and she marched into the crosswalk, gripping the shoulder straps of the backpack so tight he thought they might tear off. 

"You make sure you don't give that baby heatstroke, young man." 

"Sorry, gotta go," Gary mumbled, and hurried after Brigatti. Was that what he sounded like to the strangers he tried to steer out of the path of disaster?

By the time they arrived at St. Matthew's, Gary was regretting the water he'd wasted in the shower. The temperature was already in the eighties and headed nowhere but up. He was starting to think the woman had been right about heatstroke, and he pulled the blanket off Addie as soon as they entered the church through the wide front doors. Signs pointed them into the main body of the church, then down a side aisle, where a door labeled "classrooms" opened to a narrow staircase. The smells of incense and candle wax followed them downstairs, where they mingled with the ghostly fried-chicken and mushroom soup casserole aromas of a thousand church suppers. 

The first door in the hallway opened to an office. Brigatti headed right past it, with Gary in her wake, but a woman's voice, heavily accented--Wisconsin, Gary guessed--stopped them in their tracks.

"Yoo-hoo. Whatcha doin'?" Behind a battered wooden desk like the ones his grade school teachers had used sat a woman with neat blonde curls, thick-rimmed glasses, and the same passive-aggressive smile as the woman from the crosswalk.

"Oh, uh--"

Brigatti--Nia--pushed past Gary. Her posture melted from pissed-off cop into that of an indulgent, happy mother. "We're here for the music class."

"Oh, great!" The church lady nodded, as if she'd been expecting them. "We'll get you registered and you can go in."

"Register?" Gary asked. "I thought the class was open to the public."

"Of course it is! But we need to know who's in the building. Gotta keep our kids safe!" She pointed to the ancient chairs across from her desk. "Please, have a seat." 

"We truly appreciate your focus on the children's safety," Brigatti said as they sat. If there was a message for him in that--and Gary was pretty damn sure there was--she didn't change her tone to deliver it. "It's one of the reasons we decided to try St. Matthew's. Don't mind my husband. He doesn't get out much. Take off your hat, honey. We are in a church, after all."

Gary whipped off his baseball cap; Addie grabbed it and shoved the brim in her mouth. The woman shuffled color-coded folders on her desk until she found the one she wanted--blue--and pulled out a form. She held a ballpoint over it, poised to record every lie they were about to tell her. In a church. 

"What a sweetheart!" she said, pointing the pen at Addie. Addie looked up from the cap, trailing a line of drool. "She's quite the little princess, isn't she?"

For once, this stopped Brigatti in her tracks. She opened her mouth, then shut it. "Daddy's little girl," Gary filled in. 

Wisconsin Church Lady beamed. "Now, we need your names, phone, and address."

"Greg and Nia Snow," he said, and started to give her the phone number for McGinty's.

"Oh, no, that's our old number, honey. When are you going to remember?" Brigatti shook her head at him, then turned an ingratiating smile on Church Lady. "We both have cells now. So much more convenient." She rattled off a couple of numbers and an address Gary didn't recognize. 

Church Lady frowned in the direction of Gary's hand, then Brigatti's. "You _are_ married, aren't you? To each other? I noticed you aren't wearing rings," she finished with a nervous chuckle.

Gary started to say they were out for cleaning, but Brigatti jumped in. "We were married in a small ceremony, just family, and we skipped the rings for right now. We wanted to have children as soon as possible, so we used the money we would have spent on a fancy ceremony and rings to buy a house." It was as if she'd thought the whole thing through already. She probably had. But only, he assumed, for the sake of their cover.

Wherever it had come from, Brigatti's answer seemed to appease, if not entirely satisfy, Church Lady. "I didn't realize you could get married in a church without rings," she murmured as she wrote something on her form. "And your little one's name?"

"Zeke," Gary said. Brigatti turned an incredulous stare on him.

"Oh. Is he--" Church Lady frowned as Addie tossed Gary's cap to the floor and pulled at the ties of her sunhat.

"She," Brigatti corrected. "It's a--"

"--family thing," Gary finished.

"--nickname," Brigatti ended, scowling at him. 

"Family nickname," he said, pasting on his most charming smile. 

"And you're both--" She looked at them, the frown deepening. "-- _available_ to attend this class for the next six weeks?"

Brigatti put her shoe on top of his and pressed. He kept his mouth shut while she said, "I won't be here all the time, but Greg will. I usually work days, he works nights. Tag team parenting."

"When do you ever sleep?"

"We don't," they said together.

Church Lady's expression softened into sympathy. "Oh, honey, how do you stand being away from her so much?"

The pressure on his foot eased. "Greg takes good care of her."

"The babies are in classroom six." Church Lady pointed them around the corner, where the hallway widened into a corridor with doors on both sides. They passed a couple noisy rooms tagged "Vacation Bible School"; any view inside those was obscured by clouds of glitter.

"See?" Gary said as soon as they were out of Church Lady's range. "I would never have gotten in here on my own. That was quite a story you came up with about the rings."

" _Zeke_?" Brigatti whispered back. "You named our baby after Crumb?" 

"I had it picked out for a kid before I even knew Crumb."

"I'm thinking it's not the newspaper that makes you weird. It's definitely not the only thing."

"What's wrong with Zeke? It's cute!"

"It's not exactly under the radar."

"Neither is a kid bundled up in a quilt when it's a thousand degrees outside."

Brigatti stopped outside classroom six. Hand on the doorknob, mouth drawn tight, she scowled up at him. "Addie--"

"Doesn't like it when we fight." Gary undid the sunhat's ties, hoping to erase the big-eyed look of worry from Addie's face. She gave him a grin when he ruffled her curls. "I know. Let's do this, Mrs. Snow."

Brigatti pushed the door open. Gary had expected rows of decks and a chalkboard, but this classroom had a circle of big flat pillows on a red and blue carpet. Young mothers and their babies and toddlers milled around, chatting and giggling. It looked like chaos to Gary, but Brigatti swiped Addie from his arms and sailed into the crowd with a brilliant smile.

"So sorry we're late," Brigatti--no, Nia--said. "We had to register with that nice lady in the office."

A woman with long grey hair and a flowing purple dress, her arms covered in silver bangles, smiled right back from the only chair in the circle. "Of course. I'm Mrs. Nancy. Welcome to Baby Tune Time!" She clapped her hands, and the mothers and babies settled onto the pillows.

Next to her feet, Gary spotted a basket of brightly colored instruments. He took a step toward it; if he could find the faulty jingle bells and get rid of them before the kid even had his hands on it, the problem would be solved. But Brigatti nudged him in the side, hitting one of yesterday's bruises. He flinched, and realized everyone was staring at him--probably because he was the only guy over the age of three. Brigatti flashed him a slightly different smile--the one she reserved for those she planned to kill later. "Say hello, Greg."

"Uh--" He looked around the circle, not sure to whom he was supposed to say it. "Hello."

"Please join us!" Mrs. Nancy pointed at an orange pillow, the only open seat in the circle. Brigatti strolled over to it and plopped down, leaving Gary to squeeze into the space on the floor between her and a mother and toddler with matching, beaded braids. "We're about to introduce ourselves and sing our welcome song!"

The mothers--most of them didn't look old enough to be out of college--clapped their hands. The babies and toddlers followed suit, or tried to. Addie stared around the circle and broke into the widest grin he'd seen from her yet. "Gabababadada!" she crowed, and everyone laughed. 

"Gooooood morning! Good morning! We're so glad you're here!" Even when she sang, everything out of Mrs. Nancy's mouth seemed to end in an exclamation point. They sang it for every kid in the circle and then the parents volunteered their kids' names. Everyone chirped, "Good morning!" to Chad or Brittany or Sam, and the song moved to the next family. Gary expected a death glare from Brigatti for making her put up with it, but Nia seemed to love it; she helped Addie clap and wave, and beamed at the other mothers when she wasn't singing. It all felt a little _Twilight Zone_ to Gary.

She did spit out a terse, "Zeke," when the song came around to them, which caused more than a few odd looks and stumbles, but Addie waved and tried to clap when everyone waved to her, and the song went on. 

"Social kid," Gary said under his breath.

"She hasn't had much chance lately," Brigatti whispered back.

"She's been with me. I'm social."

Brigatti snorted, then covered it up with a cough.

Luckily, there was only one Jaime, a boy in camo shorts and a blond crew cut who looked a little older than most of the kids. He sat next to his mother, who had a squirming baby in her lap, and pulled the Velcro fasteners on his sandals off and on, off and on. Brigatti shot Gary a look when Jaime's mother introduced him; Gary gave a tiny nod. Now he just had to figure out how to keep Jaime away from the jingle bells.

"Let's make some music!" Mrs. Nancy picked up the basket and walked around the circle, handing out instruments. She gave Addie a bright green tambourine; Addie immediately pulled it toward her mouth. 

If one instrument could fail, any of them could. "Watch out for--"Gary started, but Brigatti was on top of it before he finished. She pulled the tambourine out of Addie's drool zone, set it on the floor, and showed Addie how to smack it like a drum. Gary reached over to join in the drumming, but Addie grabbed his finger and pulled it to her mouth, laughing up at him like she was having the best time in the whole damn world.

Brigatti's elbow dug into his side again. Startled, he followed the tilt of her head to the piano across the room, where Jaime's mom was chasing the crawling infant, and then back to Jaime, who had a blue circlet adorned with silver bells in his mouth already. 

Yanking his finger out of Addie's mouth, Gary lunged across the circle and snatched the bracelet from the kid's hand. Jaime let out a yowl that Wisconsin Church Lady--hell, probably Winslow himself--must have been able to hear.

"Jaime!" Baby on her hip, the young mother ran to them. "Leave him alone!" 

"We share our instruments, Mr. Snow," Mrs. Nancy chided over Jaime's wails. 

Jaime's mom swooped down to toddler level. Gary sat back on his heels and held up the bracelet, shaking it to show her how one bell dangled by a single thread. "Then let me share this--little Jamie here was about to choke on a jingle bell." Mrs. Nancy's mouth opened and shut as she took the bracelet. 

"You didn't have to hurt him to get it!" Jaime's mom set the baby on the pillow and scooped up Jaime, cuddling him close. The baby started back for the piano.

"He was going to choke."

"These instruments are safe for small children," Mrs. Nancy said, but she didn't sound as if she quite believed it. 

Jaime's mom made a show of holding Jaime's mouth open and looking inside. "You could have broken a tooth!"

"Wouldn't it grow back?" Gary asked. "Nothing broke!" he added, when he realized everyone was staring at him. Some of the mothers had climbed to their feet, moving in on him in a pack. 

Jaime stopped crying long enough to say, "Bad man!"

"Yes, sweetie," his mom soothed. Her glare didn't ease as she and Gary stood.

"I was trying to--I mean, you weren't paying attention to him and I thought--"

"Are you saying I'm a bad mother?" 

"No! No, I--" Gary broke off at a tug on the hem of his jeans; Addie had crawled over to him and pulled herself up on his pant leg. "I was trying to help." He picked Addie up; she sniffled and ducked her head under his chin. "He would've choked."

"You don't know that!"

"You don't know he wouldn't have," Brigatti said. She, too, had crossed the circle to stand next to him. There wasn't a trace of Nia left in her. "No one is saying it's your fault--or yours," she added to Mrs. Nancy, who turned the bracelet over in her hands, "but Greg didn't do anything wrong."

Addie lifted her head and looked around; when she saw Jaime's mom glaring at Gary, she must have thought it was directed at her, because she started crying full bore. Then she saw the jingle bell bracelet, which Mrs. Nancy was holding out from her body like a bomb waiting to go off, and lunged for it. When Mrs. Nancy pulled it away, Addie started making her barky "I want it" noises. This would not end well.

"Nobody messes with my boy." Jaime's mom turned to Mrs. Nancy. "I want him out!"

"Give me a break." Brigatti let out a derisive laugh. "Look at the guy! Greg would never hurt anyone."

"Oh, yeah?" Jaime's mom peered at Brigatti's neck. "Where did you get those bruises?"

"Now wait a minute," Gary started. Addie hiccupped and heaved out a half-sob. 

Brigatti didn't miss a beat, stepping right into Jaime's mom's space. "For your information, I was mugged yesterday, and Greg saved my life, so maybe you want to back off."

Jaime's mom narrowed her eyes. "Doesn't look like something a guy would do for your purse. Maybe I should call the cops. Or Child Protective Services."

Brigatti's hand curled into a fist. "You can mind your own da--"

"Nia! " Gary put a hand on Brigatti's shoulder. "It's okay." Bouncing Addie, rubbing her back, he turned to Jaime's mom. "I get it. I'm a stranger touching your kid. But look, I wouldn't want my own little girl here choking, and I didn't want it to happen to Jaime, either." Jaime stared up at him from behind his mom as if Gary was some kind of monster. "But, uh, maybe we should go." Addie was winding up to a full-on tantrum, and they needed to get out before all hell broke loose, one way or another.

Brigatti pinned Jaime's mom with one more death glare, then marched over to pick up their paraphernalia. Gary headed for the classroom door, Addie screaming in his ear--he wasn't sure if it was because they were leaving the music class, or because yet another argument had upset her. What he did know was that it was going to be his fault, and that he was leaving without a thank-you--again.

Addie's cries echoed down the hallway; Church Lady stared at them as they hurried past. Once they were up in the church, Brigatti said, "Wait," and Gary turned around to face the music. "Let's regroup." She tossed the hats, backpack, and quilt onto a pew. She put her hand on Addie's heaving back. "Is she okay?"

Gary shrugged. He sh-sh-ed into the top of Addie's head for a minute or so, and she finally slowed down to breathy sobs and hiccups and snuggled in closer. "You're breaking my heart, kid." 

"I'm sorry." A trace of Nia snuck back into her voice. "We should have brought Fred. Poor bug, nothing's the way it should be."

He'd done it again--gotten them into a situation where they could have been hurt, where they could have lost Addie. But he didn't see how he could have missed a chance to help that kid, even if his mom was a bear. "Thanks for sticking up for me."

"You did the right thing." Brigatti leaned close to Addie and made a face at her. Addie blinked tears off her lashes and grabbed a handful of hair from above Brigatti's ear, pulling it out of her ponytail. "You didn't deserve to be blamed for any of it."

"Guess it looks a little different from this side of the paper," he ventured. 

She stepped back, not far, because Addie still had a handful of her hair. "It does, yeah." The look she gave him, summing him up, was part Nia, part Brigatti--it was Toni, and he had no idea what it meant until she gently disentangled Addie's fingers from her hair and retied the sunhat. Her face settled into Brigatti's determined lines. "Okay, bug, this is where you go home."

"Wait, what?" 

She settled the backpack on her shoulder and held out the blanket and his Cubs hat. "You're taking her home--back to the condo," she corrected herself. 

Addie made some noise, beating on his chest as if it were the tambourine. He shifted her higher and stepped into the aisle, keeping himself between Toni and the exit. "You are not going there alone. This is my paper we're talking about here."

"Winslow is my partner."

"This is not how I do things. I don't turn around and walk away when someone is in trouble."

She pressed her lips together while she searched his eyes. For what, he had no idea. He wasn't hiding anything. 

Addie hiccupped a couple times, and the lines at the corners of Toni's mouth softened. "I get it Hobson," she said in a calmer voice. "I really do. But you have to trust me. I will get to Winslow and you will take Addie home."

Take Addie home. Walk away from a drive-by shooting; walk away from _her_. "I did not tell you about the paper so you could throw yourself in front of a bullet."

"No." Stained-glass shadows played over her face. "You told me so I could save my partner from that bullet. And so we could protect Addie."

Gary shook his head. "I don't like this."

"I don't care what you like." She tilted her head to one side, like a bird. A bird of prey. "If you go out there and save Winslow, he'll have questions."

"And he won't if you show up?"

"I'm better at answering them. If you're there, too, he'll have a lot more."

He took a breath, rubbed Addie's back. "Look, I know it's hard to see Winslow in the paper like that. How many times do you think I've seen people I know? Crumb, Chuck, Marissa-- _you_. I get that you want to help him, but I know how this works and--"

"And now I do, too. We need to play to our strengths here. I am a cop."

"It's my paper," he insisted, even though it was hopeless. He let his shoulders sag so she'd know she'd won. But not all the way. "Okay, fine. You go to Winslow, and Addie and I can take care of the pool fight and the rob--"

"You will not pass Go, you will not collect two hundred dollars." She jabbed a finger at him. "You will not stray from the path to Grandmother's house to collect a bouquet. Or save a flower seller. If you screw this up, if I get back to that condo and you aren't there, I will hunt you down and kick you off this case and you will never see--" She stopped, gulped, and nodded at Addie, who was back to danger watch again, poor kid. "You'll never see her again."

If he let Toni go off alone, he might never see _her_ again. "You saw how the paper changed when you told me not to come here--it's because everything in there is important. Stopping traffic jams might not matter to you, but it matters to the people in them. People who are late to work lose their jobs. People need to get to the hospital, maybe to see their kids born, or maybe to say good-bye to someone. And the kids at that pool--"

"No!" She grabbed his shirt in both hands, leaning over the top of Addie's head, so close he could feel her still-toothpastey breath on his chin. "You either swear to me, on your life, or your cat's life, or something you'll actually _stick_ to, that you will take Addie back to the condo and stay there, or I will handcuff you to this pew."

He risked a tiny smile. "You want to play with handcuffs?"

"Not in the church, you idiot." She pushed off him. But she was still close--close enough he could see her pulse rapidly beating under the bruises Jaime's mom had accused him of giving her. Bruises she might not have had if he'd told her about the paper sooner. She saw him looking, guessed what he was looking at, touched her neck. 

"God, Toni, I'm so--"

"Don't say it." He wasn't sure if she meant the apology or her name. She looked up over his head, at whatever was on the stained glass windows, then back at him. "You didn't do this. He did. And I am sending you home because I don't want him or anyone like him within a mile of Addie. I can't let my partner get shot. But I have to know she's safe. I need you, Hobson."

Addie had his shirt gripped tight again. He thought about dragging her through a smoky house and down a ladder, about her tumbling out of Meg's arms the night before, about leaving her in a bathtub all alone--all that, and she still seemed to trust him. 

He took in a breath, held it. Let it go. She needed him. "Okay. We'll go right home. I promise."

"And stay there?"

He shifted Addie to one side and grabbed Toni's arm with his free hand. "I promise, we'll stay. But _you_ have to promise _me_ you'll come back."

"Don't be a moron. Of course I'll come back. It's not like I can leave you alone with her. You suck at undercover."

"I do not!"

"I just saved your ass from a soccer mom who's probably half your age." Somehow she was closer, close enough he could smell toothpaste and sweat through the incense-laden air of the church. Close enough he could see the corners of her mouth twitch. "And for a guy who's been married, you aren't very good at pretending to be."

"Yeah, well, it'd be a lot easier if you could at least pretend to like me."

"You saying I'm not a good actress?"

"I'm saying--" Oh, hell, he couldn't think of anything to say, couldn't keep up the spat. Couldn't do anything, when she was that close, but kiss her.

He was still holding her arm, so he felt her start, then relax, lean in, and kiss him back. It wasn't a long kiss, or a deep one, but she definitely kissed him back. Even when Addie squirmed and squeaked between them, Toni's lips lingered on his, warm and full. Either she really was a good actress, or she wasn't acting at all. She broke off with a sigh, and his second attempt at a kiss landed on her forehead. 

"We're in a church," she whispered, tucking the blanket around Addie. She wouldn't meet his eyes, and maybe it was better that way. If she had in that moment, when they were both vulnerable as hell, he was pretty sure he wouldn't be able to let her walk out the door. 

To hide his own confusion, he put his Cubs cap on her head. "Maybe this will help." As if no one would recognize her. He'd seen the way she walked around a crime scene; they'd know her by her stride alone.

"Go back to the condo." Still not looking at him, she fussed with the blanket around Addie one more time, then gave her a pat on the back. "Don't let anyone but me or Paul on that elevator. No. One."

"What about Cat?" he asked as he followed her down the aisle.

"If your cat pulls that again, shoot him." Her tone was brisk, as if whatever had just happened hadn't actually happened.

"I don't have a gun. Don't have my paper, either," he reminded her as he followed her out of the church.

"It's staying with me. I'm going to help you keep your promise by removing temptation."

"But if anything goes wrong--"

"If anything goes wrong, you won't know about it, so you won't do something stupid to try and stop me." She put the sunglasses on, then finally faced him. "Trust me, it's better this way."

Was she talking about the paper, or about the broken-off kiss? She left him standing on the steps of the church holding a squirming, unhappy Addie, sure he'd made his biggest mistake yet.

~*~ *~ *~ 

She trusted Hobson, Toni told herself as she hustled to the station house. Trusted him despite his near failures at undercover work and supremely bad timing. He trusted her--not only with his secret, but, however reluctantly, with the newspaper itself. That had to be progress, even if going anywhere near the station in the middle of this case didn't feel like it.

She kept pulling the baseball cap lower on her head, and every time she did, she caught a whiff of Hobson. Great. She'd gone from deciphering his excuses to cataloging his odors. And kissing him back when he tried to start something at the worst possible time. What the hell was wrong with her?

The closer she got to the station, the easier it was to put her questions about Hobson behind her. She kept her eyes open for possible shooters among the little restaurants and specialty shops that crowded the pedestrian-friendly neighborhood. There had to be a hundred places for lunch within a five-minute walk from the station, but Winslow always went to Taco Town. Anyone looking for him could find him there by eleven nearly every morning. Which was good if his informants needed him, but bad if someone with other intentions wanted to hunt him down.

Maybe it was a random shooting, but it didn't feel that way. Too close to the station for that. Too many people around this part of town for a hit on a cop to be coincidence. She couldn't think of any case he'd worked on recently--with her or, since she'd been put in charge of Rachel's protection, on his own--that would bring this kind of trouble down on him. Then again, years in law enforcement had taught her to expect the unexpected.

She threaded her way through a group of school age kids in matching red t-shirts getting off a bus. They far outnumbered the adults trying to herd them down the block, calling out, "Stay together!" and, "Hold hands until we're inside the police station!" That was all she needed--a tour group full of kids witnessing a drive-by. "Don't run!" a harried young man called, hurrying after the group. "Our tour's not until eleven, so we have another ten minutes."

Shit. The shooting was supposed to happen in seven minutes. Toni broke into a run, dodging shoppers, cyclists who should have been ticketed for riding on the sidewalk, and people headed out for early lunches. People like her partner.

No wonder Hobson always seemed like such a flake, she thought as she twisted sideways to avoid a double stroller. It was bad enough being called out at a moment's notice after a crime had been committed. Trying to get there before one happened would make anyone look a little strange. Like she looked now, a hundred feet from the station, running full-tilt in a baseball cap, a backpack banging against her spine.

She ducked across the street, hoping the uniforms on break hanging out on the steps and the hoods of their patrol cars wouldn't notice her. She stopped in front of a dry cleaners, directly across the street from Taco Town.

A line was already forming outside the tiny restaurant--mostly kids in their late teens or early twenties. No wonder Winslow loved it--half the time he acted like a kid himself. Sometimes she thought he'd joined the force because it was the closest thing to fraternity life in the adult world. She scanned the line. No flop of yellow hair. But the shooting was supposed to happen any minute now.

"Damn it, Hobson." It was his fault, somehow. Or maybe hers for not getting all the details of how his newspaper worked. But then Winslow stepped out of the shop, holding a bag with grease stains visible from across the street.

Throwing caution--and anonymity--to the wind, Toni waved. "Winslow!" He stopped and looked her way, took an agonizing second or two to find her, then waved back like a doof who didn't know he was seconds away from a gunshot wound. He dashed across the street against the light. Toni thought maybe he'd get run down instead of shot, but even Chicago traffic paused for him. Of course it did.

"Nice disguise, partner." He leaped the curb and grinned at her, rocking on the balls of his feet. "I especially like the hat. Wouldn't have known it was you, except no one else yells my name quite like that hat."

Across the street, a puke-green Buick crawled by Taco Time, then sped up to get through the yellow light, cutting across traffic from the right to the left-hand turn lane.

"Soooo," Winslow drawled. "What are you doing here?"

She peered around him. The Buick had a bullet hole in the trunk. "It's them."

"Who--holy shit, Brigatti, what happened to your neck?"

The Buick made an illegal u-turn and headed down their side of the street. A small black barrel slid out the passenger window. She knew the hand. Less than twenty-four hours ago it had been wrapped around her throat. Now it was pointing her gun at her partner.

"Get down!" Toni's sunglasses and hat went flying as she drove Winslow to the pavement in a blindside tackle. Three shots rang out in sharp succession. Behind them, glass cracked, shattered, and showered down on them. The car accelerated. A cacophony of horns sounded as it drove off.

Toni took a moment to breathe. Hobson's paper had been right. But it wasn't complete. Those were Guyette's people. Who could not possibly have been planning on her being there. Who'd tried to use her gun to shoot her partner. They'd gone by Taco Time first, which meant they had been looking for him.  
"Toni?" Winslow's voice was muffled by the sidewalk. "You okay?"

She clambered to her feet, graceless and breathless. "Is everyone all right?" She scanned both sides of the street, but the only person down was Winslow. And then everything went fuzzy-edged and wobbly. Damn concussion. She put out a hand to steady herself and nearly fell into the hole where the dry cleaner's window had been.

"What the hell just happened?" Winslow sat up, grease stains and dead taco debris on his shirt.

"They tried to shoot you."

"Pretty sure it was you they were aiming at," he said. "Did you get the license plate?"

"The letters were TDM. Didn't get the numbers. But Winslow, they didn't know--"

A man came running out of the shop, arms flailing so wildly she couldn't tell if he had two or eight. "What is this? I thought I was safe with the cops across the street."

It could have been him. He could have been left in the line of fire when she pushed Winslow out of the way. Or one of those kids gathered outside the station in a red blur, or some random bicyclist...she grabbed at the side of her head, trying to steady the world. Or herself.

"You hurt?" Winslow was there at her elbow, pushing Hobson's hat onto her head as a crowd gathered around them. He handed her the sunglasses and she put them back on. "Talk to me, come on. What are you doing here?"

The cops who'd been on break outside the station were already on their way. She wasn't sure she could move fast enough to avoid them. "They were Guyette's people," she told Winslow. "He was trying to--that was my gun--"

"Toni--"

"I have to get out of here." She pulled against his grip on her elbow. "I mean it, Winslow, there's a leak in the department. They can't know I was here."

His gaze honed in on her neck. "A leak that did that to you?" She hesitated, then nodded.

His lips drew together in a tight line. He whipped around, putting himself between her and the first group of uniforms pushing their way through the crowd. "Be right back. Gotta clean up," he called. He maneuvered himself between their line of sight and Toni, half-dragging her across the street. "C'mon, I'll buy you a taco for saving my life."

He hustled her into the restaurant. The part of Toni's brain that was still working, that always worked, noted six tiny booths, three on either side of the restaurant, with a walk-up counter running the width of the room. There was probably another exit back in the kitchen, but she couldn't see it. The line hadn't thinned out at all since the shooting, though they got a handful of curious looks as Winslow guided her to one of the booths at the back. She sat, facing the front door. Wall at her back, full view of the room. Backpack next to her. She slid the zipper open and rested her hand on the Browning. Bits of hamburger and tomato dripped off Winslow's shirt and onto the table. "All right, spill."

She couldn't spill. She couldn't sit still long enough to tell him anything. Her foot started tapping on the sticky floor. "I can't stay here."

"You can't just tell me that was your gun and run out on me. I.A. will be all over me like white on Wonder Bread anyway, and once that little tidbit gets out--"

"Don't let it get out."

He leaned over her; she could smell the Calvin Klein aftershave he drenched himself in through the fried meat and tortilla haze. "I need to know what's going on. And so will Banks."

She shook her head, eliciting a sharp pain over her eye. "There's a leak in the department, someone trying to blow this trial to hell," she told him again, in the same hushed tone she'd used with Hobson in the church. "Those guys who shot at you, they're the same ones who found me yesterday." She opened the backpack, wishing she could get out the paper, or the gun, but instead fished out the bottle of aspirin.

"In Schaumburg?" Winslow asked.

Her foot went faster. "How do you know that?"

He slid into the booth across from her. "The whole department knows you've been shacking up with Hobson in the suburbs."

"I have _not_." His mind worked like a twelve-year-old's, one who'd just discovered the opposite sex. She'd watched three brothers go through it, so she knew it well. It meant he knew how to push her buttons, and it meant he had no idea when to stop. She swallowed two aspirin dry.

"You're with some other crackpot-turned-hero? Or is it hero-turned-crackpot?"

"He's not-- _I'm_ not-- But that doesn't matter, does it?" She propped her elbows on the table and buried her head in her hands. "What matters is what the rest of you think. Does everyone know where we are now?"

"Not a clue." He shot her a rueful grin, one that let the cop leak through the teenage boy. "Hey, come on, I don't care about gossip, you know me."

"Ha."

"I don't think you're anything but a good cop, Brigatti."

"Then stand up for me when those rumors start going around!"

"I don't know, partner. You usually do a great job of standing up for yourself."

"I can't do it if I'm not there."

"True." He slouched back against the booth. "I'll try to squash that one, since you saved my life and all. Are you going to tell me why they were shooting at us, or how you knew to be there? I know you weren't missing me."

"I happened to be in the neighborhood," she tried. It had never worked on her, and it didn't work on her partner, who shook his head. "I took a walk and got hungry for tacos."

"You know who you sound like." Without waiting for an answer, he reached over and flicked her sunglasses down her nose a bit. She flinched at the fluorescent lights. "You shouldn't be walking anywhere right now."

"I'm fine, though the smell in here's enough to make me sick. How do you have functioning arteries?"

"There's that patented Brigatti charm." He glanced over his shoulder, out the window. "Look, they'll be full of questions over there, so I'll go try to answer them and keep you out of it. Might take a few minutes. I'll shepherd the circus into the station and come back, because you are going to tell me why someone took a shot at us. Your witness and her kid--they're okay?"

"Yes." She trusted Hobson. Sort of. More important, she had his newspaper.

"Jacko," Winslow called to the guy at the counter, whose shirt was nearly as big a mess as Winslow's, "take care of my friend here. Get her some lunch and an iced tea, no sugar. Biggest one you've got. Lemon?" he asked Toni. She nodded. The guy saluted Winslow and headed back to the kitchen.

Toni waited until the attention of the people in line turned back to the counter. "No one can know I'm here," she reminded him.

Winslow pretended to lock his lips and throw away a key.

"And those files you sent--I want mine. Hobson's, too." If the whole department had been talking about the two of them, she wanted to limit access to any information they might use. 

"Don't you have his memorized? Or have you been too busy mooning over his mug shots to pay attention to the reports?"

"Don't start."

"I'll get it. Might need a hand cart." He swung his legs into the aisle and stood. "If anyone bothers you--"

She patted the backpack. "I have protection." Winslow opened his mouth, clamped it shut, and left with a headshake. 

He was barely out the door when Jacko plopped a red plastic basket stuffed with deep-fried tacos onto the table, along with a big amber glass, also plastic, with tea, two ice cubes, and a paper-thin slice of lemon floating on the top. "Lunch special." He put a straw and a small mountain of paper napkins on the table and blinked at her from under a helmet of black hair. "You okay?"

"Yeah, thanks."

"Detective Winslow's our best customer. You stay as long as you want. You want more, you let me know."

She gulped down iced tea to soothe the aspirin burn in her esophagus. When Jacko was back behind the counter, she pulled out Hobson's newspaper. The front-page story had changed, indicating it was an attempted shooting, not a successful one. Not a word about who the target--or targets--had been. The article said CPD was "pursuing a reliable lead" as to the identity of the shooter. She didn't like the sound of that one; what if the lead was also the leak? 

Leak or no leak, though, once it was confirmed her gun took the shot--and someone else had her department-issued Glock--the pressure on Banks from every other department involved to take her off the case would be incredible. Possibly insurmountable. If anyone over his head at CPD took up that case, they'd be able to pull her off Rachel's protection detail. Away from Addie. She supposed she should be flattered Guyette's people thought the protection would fall apart under someone else, but actually, she was pissed. About all of it. 

She turned to the metro section, folding the paper so the only thing anyone who bothered to look her way would see would be the tiny print of the stock market listings. The story about Jaime Powell choking was gone. Toni read the stories about the traffic jam, the pool fight, and the robbery again, looking for any signs of Hobson interfering. How did he keep up with this?

Because he didn't see it all, she realized. Whether the _Sun-Times_ didn't report everything, or Hobson's version was somehow selective, it was incomplete. If Hobson had been able to stop every bad thing in Chicago, CPD would have shut down for lack of business. Moreover, if he could see every problem that happened every day, he'd have driven himself nuts--more than he already was--trying to fix every damn one of them. Maybe he was right about certain stories being there for a reason.

That weight of responsibility he carried--that was the thing she'd always noticed about him, the thing that made him different, but that she'd never been able to name. It was what tied him so closely to cops--like Paul, like her. It was, no doubt, why Crumb couldn't quite stay away from him. He was a warped version of a first responder. Maybe even a pre-responder. It was only natural for her to feel a pull toward him, thanks to that aura of responsibility they shared. That, and the way he looked in a t-shirt. His pancakes weren't too bad, either.

She re-read the article about the robbery, repeating the details under her breath to the rhythm of her tapping foot. H. B. Dankson, six o'clock. She'd drop a hint to Winslow. Couldn't hurt to try. 

Well, yes, it could, if Winslow got too nosey. But handling his curiosity would be worth it if it meant not fighting to keep Hobson at the condo all afternoon. 

She glanced over at the counter. Jacko was watching her as he rang up customers, so she ventured a bite of the taco. It was just as greasy as she'd suspected, but she swallowed it down, hoping it would help to get some protein in her system.

She felt a little steadier now. She could breathe; she could move her head without fireworks going off behind her eyes. She could get out of here, get to Hobson and do what she'd been saying they had to do all along: keep their heads down, keep Addie safe. The mess around her, all the rumors and the attempted kidnappings and shootings, would stop once Rachel testified. As soon as Winslow came back, she would warn him about the robbery, make him swear to keep his mouth shut about her, and get herself the hell away from the trappings of her job so she could do the part of it that mattered.

"I'm surprised you have time to read the newspaper, Detective."

She snapped the paper down. Captain Banks stood next to her booth.

Toni sat up straight. "Sir."

~*~*~*~

Gary took a different, but zigzagging, path back to the condo. Toni hadn't told him to, but he figured he'd get yelled at if he didn't. Who was he kidding? If she wanted to yell, she'd find a reason. Probably do anything to keep him from kissing her again. As far as he could tell, no one followed him. Then again, he didn't want to draw attention by looking back too often.

"This is harder than it looks in the movies. Or at midnight," he muttered to Addie, who probably didn't hear. He kept the quilt tucked tight around her, more to keep from getting yelled at later than because it was a great disguise. After her meltdown in the church, Addie seemed to have given up the fight. She drooped against him, a little furnace sending rivulets of sweat down his chest.

Toni was right. They'd survive. And he knew she wasn't heartless. She would have let him help Jaime, one way or another. He didn't even blame her for wanting to be the one who saved her partner. It was what could happen to her in the aftermath that worried him. Without the paper, he had no way to know she was okay.

He hesitated at the corner of Walton and State. Across the street, an idling police car's lights came on. It made a u-turn, headed back the way Gary'd come, back toward the church and Taco Town. Addie stiffened at the siren, then buried her face in his shoulder and let out a couple leftover sobs. Crap. "They're just responding, kiddo. They have to, someone heard a gun and called 911, that's all. She's all right." Addie's only answer was a squirm that tangled the quilt around her legs.

Fighting the urge to turn around, he cut through Washington Square Park and ducked down an alley to get another block south. He emerged on a corner with a bus shelter. It was empty, and Addie was still fussing, using one bare foot to kick her way free of the quilt. After checking to make sure no one was watching them, he sat down in the shelter and pulled the quilt off Addie's head. She was drenched in sweat; it dripped down her forehead and pooled on her eyelashes. Plus he was pretty sure he'd need a hazmat suit for her next diaper change. She hit his arm. "Ma!" 

"I'm sorry. We're almost home." And there was no point in going back to the site of the shooting. Whatever was going to happen, it was already over.

Without him.

He was picking up the quilt again, hating that he'd have to throw it over Addie's head for another hot few blocks, when he heard a familiar "Woof!" right behind him. Gary froze. How could a bark be familiar? A "meow," sure, but--

A wet black nose pushed through the gap between the shelter's Plexiglas panes. It was attached to the head of a golden retriever, who was attached to a harness.

"What is it Reilly?" asked a voice, even more familiar.

"Marissa?" At the other end of the harness, on the other side of the Plexiglas, she turned toward the sound of his voice, perplexed wrinkles creasing her brow. Behind her, Cat sat on his haunches, watching them with its usual detached calm.

"Gababoo! Puh!" Addie shouted, trying to get out of Gary's hold with even more purpose. She wanted the puppy.

"Gary? Is that you?"

"No. I mean, yeah. Hold on."

He checked to make sure no one was paying attention to them, gathered up Addie and her quilt, and went around the back of the bus stop to take Marissa's elbow. Cat trotted toward the alley, and Gary started after him. "Don't say my name, okay?"

"You said mine."

"My bad. C'mere." He steered her around a dumpster, and she shook off his hand. 

"Let Reilly follow you." Which was what he usually did, when he was thinking clearly. Having two leads just tripped her up.

"I wanted to get out of the street before anyone saw us." Addie folded herself over his arm, reaching for Reilly and Cat. In the shaded alley, the air was marginally cooler, though it was barely moving. At least the sun wasn't beating down on them. He stopped next to a set of fire escape stairs. Cat leaped up a few steps and sat down to watch them. Gary figured that meant it was safe. "Good to see you, I think," he told Marissa.

She arched an eyebrow. "You think?"

"I just meant--well, who knows if it's really safe. What are you doing here, anyway?"

"Walking my dog, like I do every day."

"In this heat?"

"He needs to be walked. It's not so bad yet."

"Easy for you to say." He took in her sundress and sandals. "You're not hiding under hats and blankets."

"We were headed for the park," Marissa went on, "and then I heard Cat, so I told Reilly to follow him."

"How did you--of course you knew it was Cat." And of course she could get Reilly to follow him. Gary'd given up trying to figure out how Marissa and Cat connected with each other a long time ago.

"The real question is, what are _you_ doing out here? You shouldn't be anywhere near McGinty's. They're still asking for you. And where's Toni?"

"Who--" He broke off as Addie started to cry again. She'd been taken away from the fun at music class, forced to sit through too much arguing, and stuffed inside a blanket on the hottest day of the year. "Okay if she pets the dog?"

"Reilly loves kids. Hand her over."

"You want to sit on the fire escape here?" Gary helped her perch on a step, then put Addie in her lap. Reilly plopped his head on Marissa's knee. Addie squealed at Cat, who sat just over Marissa's shoulder, then grabbed one of Reilly's ears with both hands. 

"Be gentle with the doggie," Gary warned, though Reilly's feathery tail was making happy sweeps back and forth. 

Marissa wrinkled her nose. "She needs a diaper change."

Gary put a hand on the railing; it wobbled rustily. "I'm aware of that. That's why I was in a hurry to get back to--to her diapers. Who's still asking for me?" 

"Cops, Crumb says. They take shifts sitting at the corner table, nursing coffee and sandwiches. Asking about you and about Toni. I've told the staff not to give any answers. It's fine as long as you don't walk in the door." Addie released Reilly's ears, and he licked her face. "But it's uncomfortable not being able to trust the police."

"Like I told you, trust Armstrong. He's the only one we're sure of. What?" he asked when Marissa sighed.

She ran a finger down Addie's chubby bare thigh. "Last time there were cops in McGinty's asking questions about you, it _was_ Detective Armstrong."

"I get that." She'd told him how they kept insisting she tell them everything she knew about him, and not believing her when she did. He guessed he couldn't exactly blame her for being wary of Armstrong. "But look, it was his partner pushing that agenda. Armstrong's on our side."

"This time."

"You don't know everything he's done the past couple days. Toni trusts him, I trust him." He didn't miss the slight upward curve of her lips when he said "Toni," but she had the grace not to call him on it. Maybe because Addie was banging on Reilly's head like she had on the tambourine. Reilly wiggled with happiness.

"Are you guys okay?" Marissa asked. "I mean, really okay?"

"I am." Gary watched traffic and a couple of bicycles pass by the alley. "I'm not so sure about her."

Marissa's arm tightened around Addie. "The baby?"

"No, she's fine. I mean Brigatti." Toni had confided in him; Toni had started to kiss him back. Brigatti had taken the paper and run headfirst into a drive-by shooting.

"Where is she?"

"She's taking care of something in the paper."

Marissa straightened up, pulling Addie away from Reilly. "You told her?" 

"I had to. It's a long story."

"I bet." She waited, but he had no idea where to start. "How are you guys getting along?"

"Uh, it's--" He ran a hand through his hair. "--confusing."

"Same as usual, then?"

"There's never a usual with her. And all this playing house is starting to get a bit too homey, if you know what I mean."

Marissa grinned. "I can guess. Still, the paper--that's big."

"Maybe. I mean, yeah, but it's not exactly making things between us any easier." He just hoped it wouldn't end them for good.

"I told you, Gary, she can handle it. Give her some time to get used to the idea, and she might surprise you."

"That's what I'm afraid of."

"Gary--"

"Look, I don't think Cat brought you this way so we could have a heart-to-heart."

"Probably not." Marissa traced her finger up and down Addie's arm, making her giggle and curl her toes in Reilly's fur. Cat kept right on staring at Gary. "You got a guess about why?"

"Yeah, uh..." 

"Because I have at least one."

Of course she did. "How's that?"

"Crumb's been talking to the cops who've come in; he knows some of them. He gave me a message for you and Toni. If I talked to you. Which he then made me promise I wouldn't do. He said--" Her voice got lower, deeper, and took on a hint of Crumb's thick South Side accent. "--he said, 'What I would tell Hobson, if I could, which I can't, is that if something stinks, you gotta follow it, even if it means going down to the sewers. But one thing I've learned is, stink tends to go up, not sink.'"

"What the hell is that supposed to mean?" Gary paced the three steps to the dumpster and back.

Marissa shrugged. "Probably that whoever's trying to get to you is pretty far up the chain of command."

"Okay, but who is it? Why's he have to be so cryptic?"

"Like you aren't cryptic with him? He doesn't have any evidence, it's just a hunch. He said, and I quote--" Marissa deepened her voice again, "--'Tell him I got a _feeling_.'"

How high up? How much trouble where they in? "Great. That's just great."

Addie laughed and bent over Reilly again, grabbing the harness in her fists. 

"But you don't think that's why Cat brought us together," Marissa said. Behind her, Cat turned its head at an angle and fixed Gary with an inscrutable gaze. He tried to meet it, to read it, but Cat didn't give. As usual. Why did he bother getting into these stare downs? He never won.

He watched Addie kick and wiggle while Reilly licked her feet. Both times he'd taken Addie with him to stop something from the paper, she'd helped get things done, in her own way. But he didn't see how she could help with any of the stories left in the paper, and he sure as heck didn't want Toni yelling at him anymore. On the other hand, he'd meant what he'd told her. The paper was his. The people in its stories were his responsibility. Cat let out a soft meow, and Gary fought the urge to reach past Marissa and strangle answers out of it. 

"Gary?"

He sighed. He had no idea if this was the right thing to do, but what choice did he have? "There are a couple things in the paper I can't take care of. I would have called you, but we ran into some trouble after I did that yesterday."

"Did I do something wrong?"

"No. I might have, but you were fine." 

"You're not really safe, are you?" Marissa curled her arm tighter around Addie. "Any of you."

He checked both ends of the alley. No one lurking. "No, we're not." 

"Tell me how to help."

"Can you take care of a couple things for me? Just phone calls, I don't want you in harm's way." Bad enough Toni was already there.

"I'll figure it out. Tell me."

He outlined the two afternoon stories for her, gave her the addresses and times he remembered. "The traffic jam's easy. Call Chicago DOT and tell them the light at Jackson and Dearborn's malfunctioning. The fight at the pool's a little trickier."

"I'll send one of the kitchen staff over with free snacks. The kids won't fight if they're busy with soda and cookies."

"That's not bad." Better than what he would have come up with. "Thanks." He started to reach for Addie, but Cat put a paw on Marissa's shoulder, and she turned an expectant expression on Gary.

"What else?"

"There's not--"

"Gary Hobson, do not lie to me."

He sighed. "There's an armed robbery at a rare coin dealer's. But I don't want you--"

"Of course you don't. But you're going to tell me anyway."

It did seem like the most drastic thing left in the paper. Which was exactly why he'd hesitated to tell her. "I want you to give this one to Crumb. Tell him it's a message from me."

"Details."

"Not unless you promise to let Crumb help you."

"Don't you think I can handle this?"

"It's not that." He just didn't like the thought of her trying any of the things he would have. "There's a lot going on right now, and if you go busting up an armed robbery, the police will ask even more questions."

"Crumb and I will work around it. Now give me the details or you'll have to come through me and Reilly both to get this baby back."

"You and Brig--Toni. The two of you. You're gonna--"

"Make your life a whole lot easier?" She beamed. "Yes, we are. Give it up, partner."

He sighed. "H. B. Dankson, down in the loop. Six o'clock, right at closing time. Two gunmen and a getaway driver. They take gold proof coins and a liberty silver dollar." 

"Done." Marissa nudged Reilly out of the way and stood, holding Addie out to him.

"Two _gunmen_ , Marissa."

"No robbery, no gunmen. I'll make sure of it."

"I'm serious about this," Gary said as he took Addie back. Despite her stinky diaper, she let out a happy chortle. "Toni has the paper, so I won't know if anything happens to you, and I don't want you sticking yourself in front of a gun, you hear me? I can't handle two of you in that kind of trouble at the same time."

"I'll be fine," she said lightly, as if all this--mobsters and armed robberies--was no big deal. As if she was looking forward to it. "You were right. Cat brought us together for this."

He grabbed her arm. "I mean it."

Her smile dropped off. "I'll be careful, Gary. I'm not stupid."

"I didn't say you were. Things are just a little out of control right now." Which was an understatement, given how hard Addie was fighting his one-armed grip on her to reach for Reilly and Cat. "I need to know at least one of us is safe." 

"Crumb and I will take care of it. You deal with the diaper changes." She reached for Reilly's harness, but Gary tugged her back. 

"Marissa, I..." He knew what he wanted to say, but not how. She stood perfectly still, waiting for him to catch up with himself. Earlier, when Toni had asked him who else knew about the paper, he'd realized something. "You know, it occurs to me, most everyone I've ever told about the paper's run out on it--on me--sooner or later. But you haven't, and I--I really appreciate that. I thought you should know."

"Wow. Fatherhood suits you." Marissa reached out, found Addie's head, and ruffled her curls. "And you're welcome."

"You be careful, okay?"

"It's no problem, Gary. It'll be fun."

He rolled his eyes as he wrapped Addie into her quilt, turning her into a protesting, miserable, noxious burrito. "Fun. Right."

~*~ *~ *~

Toni slid the paper onto the bench next to her. Banks stood with his hands on his hips, taking her in with the look that made rookie detectives wish they were back walking a beat. "Winslow said I'd find you here. You get hurt tackling him?" He had a voice that carried, usually to the bullpen on the next floor. But no one in this place was looking; they were all ordering tacos or watching the circus across the street.

She shook her head, then winced and wished she hadn't. Wished, for half a second, that she hadn't bothered to tackle her traitor of a partner. Not when she was going to kill him herself.

Banks's glower didn't ease. "But you are hurt."

"It happened yesterday, sir."

"Yesterday." He loosened the knot on his tie and slid into the seat across from her. "We should probably talk about yesterday. Where's the baby?" He looked around the restaurant, as if he expected Addie to crawl out from under one of the tables.

"She's safe. I have everything under control." As long as Hobson followed directions. As long as they hadn't exposed themselves with all the running around in the past few hours. As long as Winslow wasn't broadcasting her location to every corner of the department.

Banks leaned in closer. His eyebrows drew together like two fat, grey, pissed-off caterpillars. "That," he said with a tilt of his head toward the window, "is not what 'under control' looks like. I'm pretty sure my friend Tarik, who does my dry cleaning on the cheap, doesn't think you have it under control. Those damn bruises on your neck make it look like someone else is in control, not you." 

"Sir, I haven't--" Toni stopped, squeezing her iced tea cup so hard the plastic squeaked. "I haven't lost control. Paul Armstrong is with our witness, and her daughter is safe."

"With Gary Hobson?"

She rested a hand on the newspaper and nodded; she could almost see the questions warring for priority in his mind as he worked his jaw back and forth. "So what the hell are you doing here?"

She had to think fast, and she couldn't come across like Hobson usually did, fumbling for a transparently phony explanation. "I was headed for the station to see you, sir. I wanted to let you know about what happened yesterday." She brushed her fingers along the bruises at her throat, since those were what seemed to draw everyone's attention. "I don't trust the phones."

"But you trust yourself enough to wander around in public? Were you tailed? Were they waiting for you?"

"No, sir." His questions were logical, the same ones she would have asked. Problem was, she didn't have an answer that would make sense to him, not unless she told him about Hobson's newspaper. She nodded at her sunglasses, touched the brim of the baseball cap. "I think, up until they saw me, they planned to shoot Winslow. They may not even have made me until after they took the shot."

"Why would anyone shoot Winslow?"

"Because it wasn't just anyone. I recognized the car and the shooter. They were Guyette's people. The same ones we ran into yesterday." 

"Still comes back to yesterday." He tapped his cigar-shaped fingers on the table. "Armstrong said you fought off a mob goon with the kid in the room."

She explained what had happened the day before, leaving out the part about Hobson's barely on-time warning. For reasons she wasn't ready to think about too closely, she felt the need to protect his secret. Back in WITSEC she'd been privy to a lot of details about witnesses' lives that had nothing to do with the cases, and she'd learned to keep them out of her official reports. It built trust on both sides. Besides, if she thought back to some of the stuff in Hobson's file, she was pretty sure that newspaper and the things he did because of it had been used against him before, even when people didn't know exactly how he knew what he knew. She didn't want that to happen on her watch.

Banks must have known she was picking and choosing her details. The curves of his mouth sank deeper into their surrounding creases as she went on, but something snapped when she told him the attacker had ended up with her gun, and that it was the same gun used against Winslow. He thumped a fist on the table, then made her repeat that part. 

"He ended up with my gun in the scuffle at the hotel. I recognized it--and him--out on the street today."

"Scuffle." He ran his hand over his mouth. "Hell, Brigatti. You know how this looks."

Toni's foot started tapping again. Out of control, like everything else. "To me, sir, it looks like someone tried to kill me yesterday and take my witness's kid, and then, when that didn't work, that same someone tried to shoot my partner and frame me for it, in order to compromise that witness's protection. But I don't know if that's what everyone else will see."

"They'll see--" He broke off, shook his head. "Thanks to you showing up here, whatever your reason, they'll know it wasn't you. Personally, I never would have believed it in the first place. But the fact Guyette's enforcers have your gun and you haven't filed it as missing looks sketchy as hell. If they find out, there'll be even more pressure from the higher-ups and the other agencies to take you off this case."

She swallowed against nausea and pushed the taco basket a few inches away. "Someone wants me off the case? Is it the Marshals?"

Banks opened and closed his mouth. Waved a dismissive hand, though it was clear to Toni he was keeping some secrets of his own. "Doesn't matter right now. I can fend them off, especially if I have no idea how to contact you and haven't spoken to you since Oak Brook." He waited for her nod of understanding. "What matters to me is my detectives have been attacked twice--not to mention someone tried to blow you up. By rights I ought to pull you all in and put you under armed guard. Is that what you think best, Detective?"

"Respectfully, sir, I think that's the worst thing you could do." Toni forced her foot to still and leaned in on her elbows. "After they infiltrated the safe house, Paul Armstrong and I took extreme measures to hide my location. Paul didn't even know where we were. But Guyette's goon did, and he knew the baby was with me. And now this thing with Winslow, shooting at him with my gun--sir, whether it's CPD or one of the other agencies, someone connected with this case must be in the Guyettes' pockets. Maybe it's the same people who are pressuring you to pull me off the case."

She waited through another taut, taco-scented silence; instead of divulging the source of the pressure, Banks finally asked, "What about your civilian? Heard there were some people asking questions at his place."

"They didn't get any answers, because no one there knew--or knows--where we are." Sure, Hobson's call to Marissa might have helped the Guyettes find them in Schaumburg, but it hadn't been the only clue, and it didn't negate the fact that someone else was looking for them in the first place. "He's with me because he was there when the house blew up."

"And how did he know to find you there?"

This was how Hobson must feel, fielding question after question he couldn't answer without raising even more questions. She didn't know how much longer she could pull it off, working through a headache and her own frustration. "It was sheer coincidence," she said. "He was in the neighborhood, and I--" She'd needed someone, in that moment, and he'd been there and brought Paul along with him, however inadvertently. "We had to improvise, and I do trust him. If nothing else, I know he isn't tied to the Guyettes, and I can't say that for sure about anyone else who's working this case." She had to work to say it without cringing. She knew it sounded like an accusation, but to Banks's credit and her eternal surprise, he took it in with a nod.

"Friend of mine--Zeke Crumb? Seems like he's tight with Hobson, so I gave him a call last night. He says Hobson's on the up-and-up. According to Crumb, he has a way of knowing what's about to happen sometimes."

"That's what he says, sir." She wondered if Banks had ever taken a close look at Hobson's file. 

"Crumb says I can trust this guy. You trust this guy. And right now I trust the two of you more than I trust most of the rest of the department, so I guess I'll have to trust him, too."

"That still doesn't tell us who the leak is," Toni pointed out.

He flexed his jaw from side to side again. "You know Occam's razor, Brigatti?"

"The simplest answer is the most likely," she said. Of course, the simplest answer to Hobson's weirdness, that he was clinically delusional, had turned out to be wrong, but generally it was a good rule of thumb in detective work. 

"So what's the simplest answer to our problem today?"

"That the leak came from CPD."

He flinched, just barely. "Someone on your team, to be exact. They have the most direct access to information. I know you vetted them; I did, too. And they've been put on desk duty or farmed out to other departments for the time being. The people Armstrong has with him look equally clean. You trust him?"

"I wouldn't have sent Rachel with him if I didn't."

"Yeah." He gave her another long, considering look. Those looks were starting to grind on her, like sandpaper to the skin. "I noticed you didn't put her with your partner."

"He wasn't there in the moment, sir." If Winslow had been the one to call her instead of Paul, would she have answered? Probably. She'd been pretty desperate. But she wouldn't have been half as relieved to have seen his number on the caller ID.

As if he'd read her mind, Banks said, "You may not believe it, Brigatti, but Winslow has potential. I put him with you because I think you can develop it. But if you don't think he's trustworthy, I can pull him off your team like the others."

She shook her head. "I think Winslow's young and cocky." And he got on her nerves just like her little brother used to. "But he's a good cop and I--" She broke off at the sight of the very same Winslow pushing past the line to get in the door. He grinned when he saw her with Banks, as if he'd done her a favor by ratting her out. Maybe he had, in a roundabout way; at least she had some idea of who she could trust and the pressures those people were under. 

"You doing okay, Brigatti?" Winslow asked. He looked from her to Banks quizzically; Banks shot Toni a loaded look and she nodded, more in answer to his question than Winslow's.

Banks leaned across the table, pinning Toni with a serious look. "I have to say it one more time, because keeping your name off this shooting is a serious breach of procedure, just like letting you go off the grid when this case went ass over teakettle. This department and a lot of other agencies have put an extraordinary weight of trust on you. If you are in over your head, I want--I need--you to tell me."

She held his gaze steady, hoping she could reflect his own faith in her back at him. She couldn't imagine giving Addie over to anyone else. "I can handle it."

"All right." Banks stood. "As far as I'm concerned right now, some gang wannabes took pot shots at my detective, and an unidentified passer-by pushed him out of the way. I want to study that bullet myself before it gets put into evidence." Toni closed her eyes for a half-second in relief; given the determined set of his mouth, Banks would hang onto the bullet as long as he could. "Winslow, you're back in fifteen. You have a report to file. Lunch break's over." He stood; she started to, but he waved her back down. "You got a piece?"

She hesitated, then nodded. Much as she didn't like the Browning, replacing it wasn't worth the hassle she'd have to put Banks or Winslow through to get her a new, department-issued gun. "Thank you, Captain."

He flashed her a rare, grim smile. "Don't let me down, Detective."

She waited until Banks was out the door before turning on Winslow. He'd already changed into a clean shirt, pressed and perfect. Teflon. "You had to tell him."

"He was out there with the uniforms. What'd you guys talk about?" 

"The case."

He waited, as if he expected her to tell him more, then slid into the booth with a shrug. He grabbed one of her tacos and bit into it, spraying bits of lettuce and taco shell all over the table--but not his shirt. "I'm not your leak, partner."

"I know that."

"Now that I've been shot at, yeah."

"Winslow--"

He held up a hand. "I get it. You have to suspect everyone, especially after Savalas. Even your partner--but then, you've never been thrilled to be paired up with me. Detective Fratboy, isn't that what you called me?"

A blood vessel in her temple pounded like the drums in a heavy metal band. For once, she was anxious to get back to Hobson, no matter how uncomfortable he made her. "I never said that."

"You wrote it. Email to Joni in Vice, two months ago. You told her not to go out with me."

"She's out of your league." She felt bad for two seconds, then realized--"You read my email?"

"It was right there on your screen."

She stared at him.

"Once I'd nudged your mouse."

And stared.

"And entered your password." He took another bite of the taco. "Doesn't matter, I'm pretty sure you're not the only one who thinks that way."

"If people underestimate you, it's because you let them." She'd had this conversation with Marcus once. With her baby brother, her advice had stuck, but Winslow remained Teflon-coated; he shrugged, snarfed down the rest of the taco, and wiped his chin with a napkin. "Where's Hobson's file?"

"Gone. So is yours." He bit into another taco and shot her a smirk. "Your file and Hobson's cuddling up in an unknown location? Just like real life."

Toni curled her fist to keep from smashing the taco into his face. She leaned in close and made her voice poisonously sweet. "Stop that shit right now. Or I will tell the entire department your real first name. The one that's not even in your file."

His mouth hung agape. Taco grease actually dripped onto his clean collar. "You wouldn't."

"You bet your Beatle-loving mama I would."

He gulped. "C'mon, Brigatti, you can take a little teasing."

"Your teasing is probably what gave whoever's behind this the idea to grab Hobson's file, stake out his bar, and come after the two of us."

He tried to pull off a look of puppy-dog guilt, but it only made her want to smack it off him. "You think I want to get you hurt?"

"I think you can, if you don't shut up, whether you want it or not. But I'll let you make it up to me. Send a marked car to H. B. Dankson, the coin dealer, at five-thirty. Have them sit out in front until the place closes and everyone goes home."

He blinked at her. "And you want this why?"

"Because I overheard something while you were gone." She tossed it off as casually as she could. "Plans to rob the place. Put a couple of people on it, just in case."

"Why didn't you tell Banks?"

"I forgot."

"Toni--"

"Do it, _Ringo_ , or you'll be filling out the paperwork on every case we work for the next six months."

"Okay, geez." He glanced around the restaurant, no doubt terrified someone might have heard his name. Good to know she could still put him in his place. "Hey, I was talking to Delano yesterday. He said to tell you he's sorry. He feels like crap about what happened."

"He ought to."

"You going to cut anybody any slack in this?"

"Not until I know who's behind it all." She snapped on the sunglasses and curled the newspaper into a roll. "I can go out the back way?"

"Yeah. Look, today--out there--if you hadn't shown up--"

Toni bent close. "You want to thank me for saving your life? Find out what happened to those files." She slipped--almost literally, because the floor was coated with grease--past the fry vats and out the back door. Took a minute to get her bearings and plan a route, then, still in the alley, flicked the newspaper open to make sure telling Winslow about the robbery had made it go away. 

The front page was the same as what it had changed to after the shooting, and the article about the robbery had disappeared from the Metro section. She hoped that meant she'd done the right thing. The rest of the stories were--

Gone. The pool fight and the traffic jam were both gone. She flipped through pages, shaking the paper in hopes they'd fall out of whatever black hole they'd vanished into. "Damn, damn, _damn_." Forget mobsters. If Hobson had gone back on his word, she'd be the one to end him.

~*~*~*~


	9. Chapter 9

Cat followed Gary to the condo. Addie struggled to get out of the quilt all the way there. Gary wrapped both arms around her and kept her completely, one hundred percent hidden. If babysitting was the only thing he'd be allowed to do, he would at least do that much right. 

He figured with all the excitement and her missed morning nap Addie must be exhausted, but once he changed her toxically stinky diaper, she perked right up. After a giddy few moments rolling around on the floor with Cat--free of her quilted prison, hair drying in clumps on her head--she crawled to her high chair. She fought Gary for the spoon while he fed her yogurt and a jar of some kind of squash, then sucked down an entire bottle in less time than it took him to put it together. But she rebelled when he laid her in the crib with Fred, arching her back and hollering all the way down. She yelled--not cried, but yelled--after him as he left the bedroom.

She needed sleep, he told himself, and he needed lunch. And to figure out, somehow, what had happened to Toni and when she'd be back. He opened the fridge, but couldn't make sense of the contents, not with Addie's sharp, demanding screeches ringing through the condo. A series of heavy thuds sent him running back to the bedroom, where she lay on her back, kicking the wall through the slats of the crib. 

"You are one determined kid," Gary muttered from the doorway. "Brigatti teach you that?" She flipped onto her stomach and let out a hoarse squawk. In the handful of steps it took him to cross the room, she pulled herself up on the crib rails, her face red, snot dripping from her nose. "You win, kid," he said, and picked her up. 

"Da!" She hit his chest, but grinned at him. Pissed off, but happy to get her own way. Just like Toni Brigatti.

He brought her out to the living area, where Cat sat perched on the kitchen island atop the stack of police files. Addie tried to throw herself out of Gary's arms to get to Cat, so Gary put her down on the floor, then dropped Cat next to her. "Entertain each other, why don't you?" He watched them play their chase game for a while, drumming his fingers on the counter. Every once in a while Cat would shoot Gary a long-suffering look, but that animal didn't do anything he didn't want to.

Unlike Gary. 

It wasn't that he didn't want to be with Addie. It was that he was supposed to be somewhere else at the same time, and he'd let a pair of women even more stubborn than her talk him out of doing what he was supposed to do. But somebody had to be here, somebody had to do this. Useless as he felt, the kid needed him, and he was lucky to have the help with the paper. 

Wasn't he?

He tried to add it up. How many minutes should it have taken Toni to stop the shooting? Heck, in the time it had taken him to talk to Marissa, Toni could have beaten him back. But now, an hour after she should have been there, there was no sign of her. 

Addie tried to feed Fred's bill to Cat; Cat gave it a half-hearted bite, but didn't fight Gary when he pulled it out of his mouth. He gave Fred back to Addie, who immediately stuck him in her own mouth. "Nice." Gary wasn't going to fight her right now. He'd lose, like he'd lost every other argument today. He let her chomp on the toy while he turned on the midday news, where the pretty anchor reported an attempted drive-by involving a Chicago police officer, but said no further details were available. 

Attempted didn't mean successful. She had to be on her way back.

The next story was about the Guyette trial, but again, details were lacking. Opening arguments today, said the reporter in front of the courthouse. A watercolor sketch showed a couple of guys in suits in front of a faceless jury. And then they went to the weather report. Apparently it was going to be hot. Big shock there.

He turned off the television and glanced down. Addie had collapsed face first on the carpet with Fred under her chest. She let out little baby snores. Cat was curled up next to her with his head propped on her back, staring Gary down. When he lifted Addie, she was so limp that for once she didn't snuggle into him, even when he tucked Fred next to her. "What are you doing to me, kid?" he whispered. "I couldn't take off now even if I wanted to." Cat let out a rebuke of a "meow."

"You're worse than Toni. I'm not leaving her, sheesh." He put Addie, unprotesting this time, in her crib. The breeze from an overhead air conditioning vent raised goosebumps on her arms, so he pulled the quilt around her and rolled the crib out of its path. Didn't need her getting sick on top of everything else she'd been through.

Scrubbing at his face, he wandered back out to the living area. A glance out the balcony showed him nothing--even with the people so small, he was pretty sure he'd recognize Toni's walk, but he didn't see any sign of a pissed-off stride or his blue Cubs cap.

He made himself lunch; nothing fancy, just some deli turkey on a bun and a glass of water he wished could be a beer. Cat leapt onto the counter and sat atop the stack of files again, meowing while Gary bit into his sandwich. "Oh, all right, fine." Toni would probably kill him, but she had the paper. Turnabout was fair play. He grabbed the stack and flopped on the couch. As he flipped through the files, he recognized a few names--Winslow and Armstrong, and Eric Delano, who'd been supposed to be guarding the safe house when it blew up. Just like the other guys who'd pulled shift duty over the weeks Rachel and Addie had been there, Delano held probationary status as a detective in training. Gary didn't see anything special in any of their files, which held yearly evaluations and training records. But the last page of Delano's application to the academy caught his eye. A note across the bottom of the form was written, in tiny blue cursive that contrasted with Delano's sloppy black printing, "Legacy--Commander Carl Delano." A photo stapled to the back of the application showed an older man with his arm around Eric; Gary assumed it was his father, the commander.

Something about the older guy was familiar; where had he seen him before? Gary closed his eyes, trying to remember. It was recent, and he didn't think it was in person, so it must have been a photo in the paper; it wasn't a story he'd tried to fix, because he would have remembered that; there'd been a picture, which he'd probably only noticed because he'd caught Miguel's byline or because it had been next to something more important.

Something like Toni's obituary. 

The charity auction, the one for Helen's Hope that had happened the night Toni was supposed to die. Carl Delano had been one of the guys in the photo. So had her captain, of course; it might not mean anything at all. Besides, he couldn't confirm what he remembered of the photo; that particular edition of the paper was long gone, and what with being under lockdown and all, he couldn't call Marissa, Miguel, or Morris and have them look it up. He'd have to sit on it and tell Toni when she got back. If she came back.

He got up and checked on Addie--still out cold--then paced around the island. Helen's Hope was a legit charity; Toni had said so. If anything, Delano senior was less likely to be involved with the bad guys if he was helping out with the charity, wasn't he? And why would Toni's captain have put Eric Delano on Rachel's task force if his family was tied to the mob? Unless Banks was in on it himself. 

Stink goes up. How high, exactly, was Carl Delano? Gary wasn't even sure what a commander did. He couldn't find out until Toni got back, and why the hell wasn't she back?

None of the other names on the folders--Graves, Harris, and Burkowski--rang bells; no one else had a note about being a legacy on his application. Winslow didn't have anything that jumped out at Gary, except the lack of a first name. Every single form was under the name "R. Winslow." Armstrong's file was jam-packed with commendations, along with a warning about his conduct when he was trying to catch William Baylor.

Even though he'd been waiting for the buzz of the security panel, he was so wrapped up in reading about Armstrong's cases that it startled him. He jumped to the panel and pushed buttons until the camera feed from the lobby came onscreen. Toni paced the width of the elevator doors, rolled-up newspaper in hand. Even on the fuzzy black and white screen she radiated "pissed off," but she looked to be in one piece.

He pushed the _talk_ button. "Welcome home." 

She planted her hands on her hips and glared at the camera. Her lips moved, but he didn't hear anything until he took his finger off the button. "...better have been here all this time!"

"What makes you think I wasn't?"

She waved the roll of newspaper at the camera.

"Don't go showing that thing in public!"

"Would you unlock the damn elevator?"

He pushed what he hoped was the right button and backed away from the panel; thought about grabbing Addie for protection from whatever rant Toni was about to fire at him, but when he checked on her, she was still sound asleep, curled into one corner of the crib.

"You'd better hide," he told Cat on his way out of the bedroom. "You know she's not your biggest fan, especially after this morning." Cat dashed into the bathroom. Gary poured a glass of ice water from the dispenser on the fridge.

The elevator door wasn't even halfway open when Toni stormed out. "Hobson," she snapped, as if the way she said his name was supposed to tell him what he'd done wrong.

He held out the glass. "You look hot." She narrowed her eyes. "I meant, you're sweating, not that you're--not that you're _not_ \--"

She took the glass without touching his hand. "Where's Addie?" 

"Asleep in her crib, so keep it down, would you?" He ended up whisper-yelling it down the hall after her, as she gulped water on her march to the bedroom. After a moment's silence, she returned, glass empty. "Why am I suddenly the bad guy?"

She thrust the paper at him, dumped the backpack on the island, and went to the refrigerator for more water. "Look at the Metro section."

The main stories were about L station overhauls and the Taste of Chicago. He let out his breath in a whoosh. Thank you, Marissa.

"What happened to the pool fight and the traffic jam?" Toni demanded. "Where did you take her when you left the church?"

"Nowhere! Hey, is your partner okay?"

She backed him up against the island. Droplets of water shook out of the glass, but Gary couldn't tell if it was because she was angry, or...something else. "Did you call Marissa?"

"No! I mean, I--I didn't _call_ her."

"Hobson," she snarled. "What. Happened. To the stories?"

He kind of liked it, to be honest. There was a part of him that always liked it when she sparked at him, at least when he knew everything was, for the moment, okay. But she'd been hurt, she looked exhausted, and he was done lying to her. "I saw her. Marissa. Pure chance." He thought it might be better to leave Cat out of it for now. "She was walking her dog and our paths crossed."

"She didn't have to know you were there."

"Uh, it was kind of unavoidable. I mean, she heard the baby. And me," he added, in the interest of being honest. "I saw a chance to do some good, to help some people out, and I took it. Marissa _likes_ helping. And this way there was no phone call to trace, and no one saw us, I made sure of it."

"Did you check windows of nearby buildings? Parked cars?" Toni pushed into his space with every sharp question. "Bicycle messengers with convenient flats?"

"Of course I did! Don't tell me you wouldn't have done the same thing. I know you care about people. I know you don't want people like Jaime getting hurt if we can help it."

She rocked back on her heels. "Do not tell me what I want. And stop saying 'we.'"

"But I thought--"

"You thought wrong."

This wasn't fun anymore. "I swear, I didn't go looking for Marissa."

"Did she come looking for you?"

"No! She wouldn't have known where to begin. She always walks her dog before the lunch rush, Washington Square or North Avenue Beach. We ran into each other. She wanted to help."

"Have you forgotten what happened the last time you went after her help?"

"How could I? I had Addie right there, and it's not like I can ever get you out of my mind." She blinked at that. "Look, it happened. Maybe for a reason. And once Marissa knew I needed help with the paper, I couldn't talk her out of it. She's as bad as you when she sets her mind to something."

Toni's jaw worked; she paced over to the window, hands flexing into fists. He half-expected her to kick the wall, just like Addie.

"I take it things didn't go so well at Taco Town?" She whirled on him; he held up his hands. "I saw the story on the noon news, and they didn't mention you or any injuries. So what's got you so worked up?"

She stopped at the island. They faced each other across the granite expanse. She pointed to the paper. "That--it's--you did exactly the thing you said you wouldn't."

"I brought Addie home. I protected her."

"You stopped to pick flowers."

"Marissa is not the Big Bad Wolf. Look, the stories are gone. Nothing new has shown up. That means she's done it, she took care of them. Like I told you, half the time she's better at this than I am."

"Only half?"

He shrugged. "Sixty percent. You can't be mad at me. I told you about the paper. I haven't lied to you once since."

"Last night--"

"Last night I _meant_ to stay. I did. And then Addie woke up and I couldn't get those kids out of my mind and --" He stopped, held out a hand, palm up. "It's not me you're mad at, not really." It couldn't be, because she was staying mad, even though he'd explained everything to her. "What happened out there?"

"Don't--" she snapped, then something clicked--open or closed, he couldn't tell. She finished off the water and set the glass on the island. "It was my gun."

"What was your gun?" he asked, a step behind her. Again.

"The same car."

"What car?"

"Schaumburg, Hobson! The hotel. Same car, my gun-- _Guyette's people_. That's who shot at Winslow."

"Why would they take out your partner with your--" Finally, he caught up. "They wanted you to take the fall."

Toni winced, and he wanted to go to her, to fix things somehow. But the way she spat out, "No shit, genius," stopped him in his tracks. She brought the glass to her lips and tried to take a drink, then scowled when she realized it was empty. Well, scowled deeper. 

"Why would they do that? It doesn't make sense you'd shoot him. He's your partner. Who'd believe it was you?"

"It doesn't matter what anyone believes." She slammed the glass on the bar, and it cracked. She stared at it, sighed. "When someone takes a shot at a cop, protocol kicks in. They'd have to at least question me. And if anyone from the force had come looking for me, they'd lead the Guyettes right to us."

Gary ventured a step toward her. "Toni--" 

"I'm going to check on Addie."

She marched down the hall, leaving him wondering how the hell he'd messed up when he'd done everything he was supposed to do.

~*~ *~ *~

Much as she wanted to, Toni did not slam the bedroom door. She did make sure it clicked shut behind her. Uncurling her fists knuckle by aching knuckle, she tiptoed to the crib. Addie had wedged herself into a corner, with Fred tucked under one arm and her other hand draped between two bars. Her feet were tangled in the quilt, proof Hobson couldn't even tuck her in right. Toni rearranged it, then rested her hand on Addie's back.

She wasn't being fair. Not even a little bit. She was still running on adrenaline, and it needed somewhere to go. Hobson was as good a safety valve as any. Because he _was_ safe. Because she damn well trusted him.

He cared about her--probably too much. He cared about Addie. He cared about everyone, which was what got him into trouble with that newspaper, got him noticed by mobsters and shrewd cops like Crumb and Banks. And when he said he hadn't done anything about those stories except tell Marissa, when he said he hadn't sought her out--hell if Toni didn't believe him. She'd done the same thing, putting Winslow on the robbery. Probably should have mentioned that to Hobson.

But if she let go of her anger--at everything that was out of her control, at the Guyettes and everyone who worked for them, at a justice system that worked all too well in favor of the criminals sometimes--there wouldn't be anything left to hold her up. She sank down on the bed, gripping the edge of the mattress. If she let go of her anger, the only one left to protect Addie was an aching, fuzzy-headed, exhausted cop.

She wasn't enough. Which was where Hobson came in. She couldn't afford to push him away.

The thing was, he could see right through her. Knowing what was going to happen gave him an advantage, but more than that, he knew which of her buttons to push. He knew how to find her when she wanted to hide. Case in point: the faint click and squeak behind her. Hobson eased the door open and hovered there, waiting for an invitation. 

She could do this. She had to do it. For Addie. Still, she made him wait a few seconds before she asked, "Can I plead concussion?"

"You can plead any damn thing you want." He ventured a couple steps into the room. "I should have asked if you were okay first thing. Not like I could think about much else while you were gone." She matched Addie, breath for even breath. "I really wish you'd see a doctor."

Toni couldn't help a snort. "Get used to disappointment."

"Oh, believe me, I am." Another step closer, one she felt rather than saw or heard. "Look, I'm trying to figure out the rules here, because I want to do this right." He eased himself onto the foot of the bed, rubbed his thumb across his palm as if he knew exactly how to set her off. Toni braced herself for another attempt at a kiss. She didn't know whether to be disappointed or relieved when he didn't make a move "I want more out of this than another case you'll put in one of those files and move on," he said instead. "I want more than a string of broken dates that we wave off like it's no big deal. Do you?"

He was doing this now? She looked at him--his jaw was set, but the crease across the top of his nose betrayed his fear that she'd keep pushing him away until he fell off the balcony. He _was_ doing this now, because to him, this was about more than the baby. 

"I don't know yet," she admitted. 

"What's that mean?"

"It means that newspaper of yours is a lot to wrap my head around. And it makes you--" So many words came to mind; most had nothing to do with the _Sun-Times_. "--confusing."

He ran a hand through his hair. "I'll grant you the paper can make things messy. But there's nothing confusing or special about me. I'm just a guy somebody out there pointed at four years ago and said, 'It's you.'"

"Maybe. Or maybe somebody gave it to you because they knew you were different." She couldn't help a wry grin at what Abuelita and Nonna Sylvia would say about her calling God "somebody." Then a lurch at what they'd say about pushing Hobson away if he really had been chosen for this. "Not everyone would do what you do with it."

"Yeah, well, I don't always do the right thing. Most of the time I don't even know what that is." He drew in a breath. "Maybe I shouldn't have told Marissa about those stories."

On that, at least, she was honor-bound to let him off the hook. "You did what you thought was right at the time. I get that much of your...whatever."

One corner of his mouth twisted. "Not everyone does."

"Like Blondie?" She couldn't quite believe herself--where had that come from? Now he'd think she was jealous. "Did she know about the paper?"

"You mean, is it why she left?" He picked at a loose thread on the duvet. "Yeah, part of it. But we didn't--we never quite--"

"Clicked?"

"You could say that." He shot her a grin. "What happened to FBI Bob?"

Bob had lasted two coffees and a movie. "We were so far from clicking it was--" She shook her head. "What's the opposite of a click?"

"A squish?"

"Bob and I did _not_ squish. We didn't do much of anything." Bob had been vanilla, and not the good kind Nonna Sylvia bought by mail order from Madagascar. And Hobson, it turned out, was a whole lot more than peanut butter and jelly. Addie stirred and kicked off her quilt, saving them both from a conversation Toni wasn't sure they should be having. She got up to tuck her back in. 

"She's so cute, even when she's sweaty and stinky." Hobson stood next to her, reaching out a hand, but Toni swatted it away. 

"Don't wake her up."

"Believe me, that's the last thing I want. Hard enough getting her to sleep."

She held onto the railing, reminded herself to match her breaths to Addie's. Somewhere in the past couple minutes, most of her frustration with him had dissipated. "Thank you. For taking care of her. For helping me do this job."

"You helped with mine, saving your partner. Besides--" He swallowed hard, tucked a corner of the quilt around Addie's toe. "I couldn't walk away now, even if you told me to." 

"Because of Addie."

He put his hand next to hers on the railing, not touching, but close enough she could feel its radiating warmth. "Yeah. Because of Addie."

"Liar." At his startled look--good to know she could surprise him--she said, "You'd still be here if the witness was some grizzled old guy with missing teeth and a drinking problem."

He let out a half-chuckle, but froze when Addie kicked the mattress. They both held still until she snuggled into Fred and let out a snore.

Toni took a step away from the crib. "I told Winslow. About the robbery, not the newspaper," she added when his mouth dropped open. "He'll have a marked car out in front of the store to scare them off. Should save Marissa from having to do anything as stupid as what you'd probably do." Like throw himself in front of a gun to protect someone else, she thought, rubbing her temple. 

"I made her promise not to go there."

"Well, good, because--" Wait. "You told Marissa about the robbery?"

"She dragged it out of me, I told you. But she'll just make a phone call, and they'll tell her the police are on it. Shouldn't be a problem." A crease of worry flitted across his face, but he shook it off. "They'll probably think she's a nut. Which is what people usually think about me."

"No kidding. You've always seemed like such a model of sanity."

"You try convincing someone something bad's going to happen when, if you're successful, it _won't_ happen."

At the church this morning, and every time he'd had to convince her, or Paul, or Crumb... "That's a hell of a brick wall to keep running into. You sure you're not the one with the concussion?"

"Actually, no. But if you--are you sure you're not--" He reached for her temple, but she pulled away.

"I'm fine." Her wisdom teeth might be ground to nubs by the time this was over, but she wouldn't give in to this headache. Or his misplaced concern.

"Come on," he said after a moment. "If you're not going to sleep, I have something to show you, and I want to hear what happened out there."

She sat on a stool at the island while he pulled out buns, meat, and mayo and put a sandwich together--all that was missing to make it McGinty's were the beer taps and his cat. And the secret that had always made a wall between them. 

"Internal Affairs will investigate once they find out it's my gun. It might be done with the intent to clear me, but it still has to be done. Which is what the Guyettes want, if they can't take us out." Hobson froze, the knife he held dropping glops of mayo onto a bun half. She gave him a little shrug. "Ties everyone up in red tape and distracts me from doing my job. Banks will fend them off, though. Don't worry." The real worry was who was putting the screws into Banks to get her off the case.

Hobson leaned across the island. His expression was urgent, desperate, as if he could go back in time and stop her from trying to save her partner. "It's not red tape I'm worried about, Toni." This time, there was no hesitation when he said her name. "I know they were supposed to shoot Winslow, but if he and Banks are right, if they changed their minds when they saw you--"

"Doesn't change anything. They missed us both." Another gollop of mayo fell, just missing her arm. Toni nudged his hand away. "You said you figured something out?"

"Yeah," he said, but the set of his jaw didn't ease. "Give me a sec." He finished the sandwich and slid it to her, along with another big glass of water and a couple aspirin; he didn't start talking until she downed the aspirin and bit into the sandwich. Too much mayo, but it was better than a greasy taco.

Good thing; if not for the protein and drugs, what he told her would have made her headache impossibly worse. "So, wait. Delano's dad goes to a party, and you think that makes him a mob mole?"

"It was a Guyette party," Hobson insisted, "and he wasn't the only cop there."

"Helen's Hope is fronted by Maurice Guyette, not Phillip and Dennis. Remember how the evil gene skipped a generation? Besides, half my superiors went to that fundraiser. Makes the department look good, and a lot of them have dealt with cancer in their own families."

"Including your captain?" he asked. She nodded. "But it was on the same day--look, I thought it might be more than a coincidence."

"Maybe." Her WITSEC training had cured her of believing in coincidences, but..."This is a real stretch. Why do you remember a random picture, anyway? Do you memorize the whole newspaper?"

"This one was hard to miss. Same spread as your--" He broke off, suddenly absorbed in wiping mayo off the counter.

The gala had been two nights ago. Two days ago, her safe house had blown up. The story about the fundraiser would have been in the same edition of the newspaper as--"My obituary?"

"I told you, I've seen that kind of thing before." He clenched his fist around the washrag, his face taut. "But there wasn't any cause of death. I was looking for any clue. I saw Captain Banks and it seemed off to me, that he'd be at a party the night you--you died." 

She couldn't quite form the question she wanted to ask, so she stared at him like the idiot she was. The one he made her into.

"Some pages get seared on my brain," he finally said. "Especially the ones with stories about people I--" He pulled in the corners of his mouth, half-turned and tossed the rag into the sink. "I wasn't going to get that page out of my head, is what I'm saying."

"That explains the seatbelt." The memory of the panic on his soot-smeared face hadn't receded. 

"And when you nearly fell off the bridge, and again when you jumped across the hotel balcony. I didn't know what would kill you, or when. I lost the paper going after Addie. It could have been anything, anytime that day. I wasn't going to let it happen."

Damn his eyes; she wanted to fall into the look he was giving her, equal parts worry and relief, weighted with something more. "Thanks," she managed, forcing it out past a lot of other things she wanted to say. To do. But she was on the job. Damn him for blurring those lines. Damn her for letting him. She sat back and took another bite of the sandwich. "Who else was in the photo?" 

He nodded, as if something had been decided, and got himself a glass of water. "Like I said, the caption didn't list their names. I recognized Banks, and now that I've seen his kid's file I know one of them was Carl Delano." He strode to the coffee table, picked up a file, and plopped it on the counter next to her plate. "Why would they have been there, if you'd died in the explosion?"

"They would have wanted to cover up what happened. Keep it away from the papers and the defense for as long as they could." That was her best guess, anyway. It would have given Ora Brook time to look for more evidence before the defense filed for a dismissal. "What about the other people in the photo?"

He closed his eyes, pointing as if they were standing in the living room. "There was another guy, thick sideburns and a really wide nose."

"Probably Rick Benning. He's in Robbery."

"Another was African American, looked like maybe he was Crumb's age, scar on his chin."

"Dev Tatum, Vice."

"And another old white guy."

"Could be any one of them." Another bite of the sandwich, and by some miracle her temples didn't throb when she chewed. It hardly even hurt to swallow. "Maybe you need a paper with more detailed reporting. Ever think about trying the _Trib_?"

"I use it to line my cat's litter box."

They both froze when Addie's cry sounded from down the hall. Hobson started toward the sound. "Wait." Toni held up a hand. "Sometimes she does that in her sleep." They listened, but the cries didn't come again.

"Poor kid's probably having nightmares about yesterday," Hobson said. "I know I am."

She fought back a shudder. If anyone on the force was in league with Philip and Dennis Guyette, they could have found out about Schaumburg; they could have sent that thug out to the hotel. But Phillip and Dennis hadn't been at the fundraiser, and Maurice and his wife had severed all ties with Phillip before Dennis was born. "Guyette's parents are clean, believe me, we've looked. Maurice hasn't even shown up at his own kid's political rallies, let alone his dying father's bedside."

"So you don't think the photo means anything?" Hobson couldn't look any more like a kicked puppy if he tried. 

"I know it's not Banks."

"But Delano--"

"I vetted every member of my team, and while Eric probably wouldn't have been bumped up to detective trainee without his dad's legacy, his record's clean, and he's learning." She gulped the rest of her water, trying to drown the voice that nagged: no coincidences; Hobson's paper; Banks confessing he was under some kind of pressure, which could be from a higher-up like Commander Delano. "It looks fishy, I know, but we need something more concrete than a half-remembered photo."

What she needed was to know who was feeding info to the Guyette family. And who wanted Addie. Who set Toni's head pounding with another fussy yelp. This time, Hobson waited--they both did, breath held, until quiet descended again. Toni went into the kitchen and started opening drawers. 

"You think you'll find proof in here?" Hobson asked.

"Hoping for a pen." She wanted to work a few things out. He pointed to the top drawer on the island, where she found a stash of ballpoints and a message pad. She sketched out CPD's family tree, a staircase branching out in a different direction for each division. "Even if both Delanos are involved, the problem has to be more than one or two guys." She filled in a few names, but none of them jumped out as suspects. These were men--and they were almost entirely men--who'd spent their lives moving up that staircase as fast as they could. The only way any of them would step off with the mob was if they thought it would get them more power. The Guyettes had to know that, which was why they wouldn't waste time with anyone as far down as her. Or Eric Delano. Carl, on the other hand..."This thing, if it's real, is structural--it's about who's answering to whom. At this point the leaks probably have leaks."

Hobson looked over her shoulder. "Stink goes up," he muttered. "That's what Crumb told Marissa."

Sounded like Crumb. "Yeah, well, it also disperses. It's systemic."

He leaned an elbow on the counter. "You coming around to my way of thinking?"

"Maybe. Doesn't mean anything if we can't prove it." She drew a spiral in the corner of the page, mazey as her own thinking. 

"What if that family isn't as broken as they pretend to be?" he asked.

All this speculation was like a generator, sparking energy she didn't think she had left. "It would explain why the organization is still operational, with Phillip's health failing and Dennis on trial."

"The fundraiser could have been a front."

"That's a huge 'if,' Hobson." Probably a concussion-fueled rabbit trail. "All that picture proves is that Delano Senior was in the same room as Dennis's parents--but so was Banks. So were a bunch of people who aren't mobsters or cops. And the leak doesn't have to be CPD," she added, wishing she could convince herself along with Hobson. "There are all kinds of agencies involved in this case. State's Attorney, US Attorney General, Treasury, FBI, and the Marshals." 

"Sounds kinda familiar," Hobson said wryly. He took her plate and glass to the dishwasher and threw a new question over his shoulder. "Tell me something. If Chicago PD's so bad, why'd you leave the Marshals?" 

She turned the pen over in her fingers. "This, what I'm doing with Rachel and Addie, this is the exception. Rachel's a good person trying to do the right thing because it's right. People like her are one-one-thousandth of a percent of the witnesses the Marshals deal with."

He closed the dishwasher and leaned against the counter, arms crossed. "What about me?"

What about him? At the time she'd met him, she'd thought he was just another weirdo, lying about why he'd been at the men's club for his own apeshit reasons. But his newspaper explained some fraction of his weirdness. "I guess you were in that one-one-thousandth of a percent. But most of the people I had to protect weren't innocent bystanders. They were just as bad as the people they testified against, and they saw WITSEC as a get-out-of-jail-free card. Most days I babysat jerks who tried to feel me up if they hadn't had all their brain cells burned out by drugs or drink or both. I wanted to work Fugitive Task Force, go after the ones who escaped, but they tend to give that to guys who look the part. So I went where I could chase the bad guys instead of holding their hands."

Hobson rubbed his thumb in circles on his palm. Part of her wanted to grab a knife and cut the damn thumb off. The other part of her--no, didn't matter what the other part of her wanted. She was on a case. "The Marshals don't know what they let go," he said.

She shrugged. "It worked out. It means I'm here, now, and--"

Addie let out another cry, sharper than the others, and then kept going. Hobson stayed put, fixing Toni with a grin. "And?"

The moment hung, suspended in all the things that came after _and_ :

And so was he.

And he'd been around to save her butt more than once since she'd moved to Chicago.

And now she knew how, and suspected why.

_Click_.

She nodded toward the hall. "And I was here when she and her mom needed me. So I guess that's good."

Hobson gave her a full-out, eye-crinkling grin. "Yeah, it is. I got her."

Addie's cries stopped the moment Hobson opened the bedroom door, and when he brought her out, she giggled at him and Toni, squirming until he put her on the floor. "She needs a toy or something," Hobson muttered when Addie scooted straight for the coffee table, pulled herself up, and grabbed one of the remotes. 

"There's a whole kitchen full," Toni pointed out. "Just not the knives." She picked up the pen and started a new diagram, trying to connect CPD, the Pembertons, and the Guyettes. 

Hobson rummaged around in the cupboards; he came up with a handful of small plastic boxes for storing leftovers. On his way to Addie, he stopped and peeked at Toni's notepad. "What about Mike Pemberton? Didn't Rachel say he might have more info?"

"He said something to the state's attorneys that made them think so, but he never turned it over, and then he died."

"Maybe he put it somewhere for safekeeping?"

"And didn't show the attorneys who could put the whole Guyette clan away with it?" She shook her head. "The only safe option would have been to give it to the prosecutors. He wasn't stupid, and neither are we. Rachel and the Marshals searched the house in Philly, we searched their home in Chicago. There was nothing."

"I didn't say you're stupid. I just don't want the guy to have died for nothing." He sat down on the floor next to Addie, stacking the boxes into a tower. She took one look at it, dropped the remote, and whapped the tower down. Hobson's cat wandered out from behind the television, where Toni was sure it hadn't been before. Still scowling faintly, Hobson picked up the scattered boxes and stacked them again, holding Addie off until he had them all lined up. When he released Addie so she could knock over the tower, he caught Toni watching him. "I wish I would have known," he said in answer to her unasked question. "If I could have saved him that day, she might not be in danger right now."

He was really beating himself up over Mike's death--kind of like she'd beaten herself up over the explosion at the house. "Do you get the Philadelphia paper?"

"No, but--"

"Hobson, you can't even manage every single thing that happens in Chicago. No one could. If stories show up in your newspaper for a reason, there must be a reason some stories don't."

Addie rocked on her butt, trying to reach one of the boxes she'd sent flying. Hobson pushed it toward her, and she toppled across his knees with another giggle. He ran a hand through her curls. "Whatever the reason, it means she doesn't have a dad." He rebuilt the tower. "And that isn't fair." 

"It isn't your fault, either. We can't deal in could-have-beens. We're barely handling the stuff that is." When he still looked dubious, she told him, "Mike didn't spontaneously go out jogging on his own one day. He'd lose his detail--or try to--for an hour or more on a regular basis. It was a game to him. A stupid one. That doesn't mean he deserved it. It's just how it happened."

Addie pulled herself up along Hobson's arm until she was standing, the shoulder of his shirt gripped in triumphant fists. "Badagoo!"

"You think it happened because of the Guyettes," Hobson persisted.

"Doesn't matter unless we can prove it. Which we can't do with the evidence we have." The security panel beeped. She headed toward it, reaching for the backpack and extracting the Browning. "Hobson?"

"Don't look at me. Cat's over here with us." He scooped Addie off the floor and sat her, squealing, on his shoulder, nudging the cat toward the hall. "We'll go hide."

Toni checked the vid screen. "Don't bother." She tucked the gun into her back waistband. "It's Paul."

That didn't ease his panicked expression. Still clutching Addie as she wobbled on her perch, he kicked his newspaper behind the television. Toni made sure he saw her eyeroll. The elevator door slid open and Paul strode out, a thunderous scowl etched across his face. "What's wrong?" she blurted out.

"You're asking me? I'm not the one who got shot at today." Flashing Hobson a death glare, Paul nudged Toni toward the kitchen. Hobson took the hint; he took Addie to the living room and went back to playing with the makeshift blocks and his cat. Didn't mean he wasn't paying attention. Toni could feel him listening. 

Paul handed her a plain black cell phone. "Burner. Emergencies only. If you use it, smash it and dump it right away."

She turned the phone over in her hands. "I'm not planning to need it, but thanks." 

Paul fixed her with an assessing look; there was something he wanted to say, and it wasn't the next thing that came out of his mouth. "Forensics found the cause of the house explosion. C-4 on the grill's propane tank, activated by a remote detonator."

Toni shook her head. "There was a grill, but its tank was empty. I checked."

"How long before that day?"

She closed her eyes. The throbbing headache returned. "When we moved in." They'd been at the house for weeks. 

"This isn't your fault." Paul sounded an awful lot like she had a few minutes ago. Probably meant she should believe him. "They snuck it in, most likely some night while your detail was dozing off, or on a coffee run."

Hobson coughed. She flicked a warning glance at him. The last thing she needed was Hobson and Paul setting each other off. The turkey sandwich turned to lead in her stomach as she watched Addie try to grab the cat's swishing tail. If it wasn't for Hobson, who knew where Addie would be now? Toni wouldn't be the one looking for her--she'd be in the morgue. Right next to Addie's mom. She wrenched her attention back to Paul. "How's Rachel?" 

"She's nervous, but ready to get it over with. Talked Ora into letting her testify first so she can get back to her kid." His piercing stare didn't let up.

"Okay, what?"

His eyes widened. "What do you _think_? You were nearly hit in a drive-by shooting."

"Attempted shooting," she reminded him.

"You could have been killed."

"I wasn't, and neither was Winslow."

"Why would anyone kill Winslow? We both know you were the target."

She deliberately didn't look at Hobson. "I wanted more files. Mine and his. I wanted to see if I could find anything that could tell me how they were able to find us yesterday."

"I could have picked them up for you."

"I wanted you with Rachel."

Paul lowered his voice. "I'm not buying this. You're too smart to throw yourself at them--right in front of the station, Toni--when you're supposed to be protecting the baby. It's the kind of thing I'd expect from Hobson, not you." He glanced at Hobson, who kept his focus on the Sisyphean task of building a tower out of plastic tubs. "It was him, wasn't it? He thought he knew what was going to happen, and for some reason you believed him and you went there."

Out of the corner of her eye, she saw guilt flash across Hobson's face. She didn't exactly agree with his secrecy--Paul, of all people, could be trusted with the newspaper if he could be convinced to believe it. Problem was, that was a huge "if," and she didn't have it in her to convince him right now. Nor did she want to break Hobson's trust. "I wanted the files," she insisted. "And it turns out they've gone missing, so unless you took them, seems like my instincts were right on point."

Paul's jaw went granite. "Don't do this, Toni."

"I'm not doing anything."

"No, he is." Paul leaned in close, and she backed up. The lip of the sink pressed into her lower back. "He's pulling you into his bullshit, and it'll get you hurt. Again."

"He's on our side. How many times does he have to prove it to you?"

"He's not. A. Cop." He ground it out slowly, as if she were mentally challenged. 

"But I am." She stared him down--more like up, since Paul was as tall as Hobson. When he finally blinked, she added, "If you don't trust him, trust me. I can take care of myself and my witness, and Hobson, for that matter. Whatever you think about my judgment, or his, we've both been right before."

"And you both nearly got killed because of it."

"Savalas fooled us all. It took an outsider like Hobson to work it out. Maybe that's what we need this time, too."

"Why _him_? He's the biggest flake I've ever--"

Hobson let out a whistle and waved Fred at them. "I'm right here."

Paul turned to him. "Yeah, you are. You always are, when this stuff happens."

Hobson kept a poker face--or as close to a poker face as he could manage--as he got to his feet. In his expression, Toni saw something reflected back at Paul. If Paul blamed him for what had happened today, or at the hotel, he fully accepted the blame. She knew he felt guilty about what had happened to Mike Pemberton; what would he have done if she'd really been killed? Did she matter that much to him?

"I'm doing everything I can to keep them safe," he told Paul.

Paul advanced on him. "Are you? Or are you just making things worse with your clairvoyant crap?"

"Guys!" Stepping over Addie and her blocks, Toni got between them, the way she used to get between Carlos and Marcus when they fought over the Atari. What was with these two and their macho shit? "Can we focus on what's important here? The point is, someone is still after Rachel and Addie both, and they probably have some connection to our department." 

Hobson gulped and nodded. "Yeah, you're right." He picked up Addie, who was making hungry fussing noises. Or maybe she was wound up in all the tension. 

"Okay, fine." Paul rubbed the back of his neck. "What do you want to do about it?"

She couldn't tell Paul about Hobson's speculation now, not when it was based on the magic newspaper. She needed some kind of proof, but she'd have to go through Paul to get it. "Who's at the hotel with you tonight?"

"Carla Burkhead and Aaron Perez. They're completely clean, Toni, you know that. " 

"Good." Carla and Aaron weren't legacies; Carla wasn't even from Chicago, and Aaron had grown up in the La Villita neighborhood, far from the circles of rich families like the Guyettes. "I want you to talk to Rachel. See if there's anything she knows that she's not testifying about. She's been through all the depositions, but if there's anything, no matter how insignificant it seems, it might help. Anything her husband might have known, any place he might have hidden information." 

"You think there's something the army of lawyers hasn't gotten out of her?"

"Tell her this is about keeping Addie safe, about figuring out why the Guyettes are going after her daughter." Addie held out her hands to Toni, and Toni took her from Hobson. "Maybe there's something she doesn't know she knows."

"I'm, uh, just going to get a bottle," Hobson said.

"I'm not sure you should keep poking around in this," Paul said. "Shouldn't your focus be on protecting her?"

"That's what I'm trying to do," Toni insisted.

"Gaba!" Addie yelled, and Paul's scowl relaxed. 

"I'll see what I can get out of her."

"Armstrong?" Hobson looked like he'd rather walk into a room full of snakes than talk to Paul, but he asked, "Did you send any cops to hang out in my bar last night?"

Paul's eyes narrowed. "Nope. Just had a squad car drive by every few hours. Why?"

Hobson glanced over at Toni, who gave a tiny shake of her head. There was nothing they could do about it now. "I was just wondering. A drive-by's good though, thanks."

Paul watched him with a perplexed look while he put Addie's bottle together. "You'd better get back to Rachel," Toni reminded him.

"Yeah." He nodded toward the island, the phone. "But next time he gets a feeling, you call me."

Toni rolled her eyes. "He's done with those." He'd better be. She walked with Paul to the elevator, trying to bounce the hungry complaints out of Addie. 

"Oh, one more thing," Paul said, looking over her shoulder to Hobson. "Why is Winslow worried about a robbery in the Loop?"

Toni let Addie whap on Paul's arm. "Maybe he had a hunch."

His jaw worked; he shot another dirty look at Hobson. "Yeah, I bet he did. Watch out for yourself, Toni. It's easy to get lost in your cover ID."

She set her chin. Seemed it was just as easy for Paul to underestimate her. "Not this time. Trust me."

Paul's look flicked from her to Hobson again, then back. "I do. I'll be in touch."

Toni waited until the elevator reached the lobby, then reset the security lock. "Want to eat?" she asked Addie. 

"Ba!" Addie patted Toni's face, and the headache came slamming back. Time for more aspirin.

She turned and saw Hobson at the island, bottle in hand, paging through the newspaper. "What now?"

"The robbery's supposed to happen right about this time. I want to be sure it's--" He stopped, didn't even jump when Addie burst into a frustrated howl.

Toni reached for the bottle. "Hobson?"

His head shot up. "What did you do?"

"What are you talking about?"

"The robbery, Brigatti--what the hell did you do?"

~*~*~*~


	10. Chapter 10

As soon as the question was out of his mouth, Gary wanted to kick himself. It wasn't Toni's fault. If anything, it was probably his. "I have to fix this." He reached for the phone, but she smacked him away with one hand, then grabbed the paper. 

" _Local Bar Owner and Ex-Cop Questioned in Attempted Robbery_?" she read aloud. "Is this about--"

"Oh, yeah." He ran his hand through his hair, paced to the window while Toni got Addie started on the bottle. "This isn't right. I thought your partner was on it." 

"He is." Toni gave him a look--part confusion, all exasperation--as she shifted Addie in her arms. "'Former CPD Detective Marion Crumb and Marissa Clark, co-owner of McGinty's Bar and Grill, are being held for questioning about an apparent robbery attempt.'" She read it in a rush, and every word pushed Gary's pulse rate a few beats higher. "They were taken into custody early yesterday evening. A police spokesperson said the two had inside knowledge from an unknown source about the attempt, which closely matches a string of robberies going back six years. At this time--" 

"I told her not to go there," Gary broke in. He paced back to the island, willing the story to change itself while he stared at it. It didn't. "I told her there were guys with guns. I told her not to mess with it." 

"Which is why I told Winslow. It doesn't say she and Crumb were at the scene. Doesn't look like the robbery even happened." 

"You mean your partner went and got them?" 

"Why would he do that?" 

"Then who was it?" He checked the clock. The store had been closed for almost an hour. He was too late to stop them being dragged into the station like a couple of criminals. "Who looks at those two and thinks 'jewel thieves'?" 

"No one. Unless they--" She shook her head. "No. Come on, Hobson, you've been there. They knew about the robbery before it happened, even though it didn't happen. They probably gave out information civilians shouldn't have. CPD had to follow up. What did you tell her?" 

"Just what was in the article." He forced himself to stop and focus, closing his eyes so he could see it again. "H. B. Dankson's, two guys come in at closing. They've got guns. They only take what they can carry, but they go for the most expensive stuff--gold proof coins from the eighteen hundreds, a liberty silver dollar. They handcuff the owner with zip ties and go out the back way." 

"It's probably the coins. If she or Crumb said anything specific, Robbery will want to know how they knew what was in the vault." 

"Or else it's because those cops who were hanging out at McGinty's last night were in league with the Guyettes and decided to mix things up a little." He rolled his hand through the air. "You know, throw a couple innocent people in jail and--well, why? What good would it do them?" 

"It'd draw you out," Toni said. Addie drained the bottle and popped up, grinning at Gary. For once, it didn't make him feel any better. 

"So it is my fault." He rolled up the paper and shoved it into the back pocket of his jeans. "I'm going down there." 

"You are _not_." Propping Addie on her hip, Toni put her hand on his arm. They both looked at it, then at each other. "You're not going anywhere." 

"Those people, the ones who shot at you, they've got their hands on Marissa." 

"No they don't. She's in a police station." 

"But if they're there-- 

"If they're there, they aren't the only ones. All they'll do--all they _can_ do--is talk to her. She doesn't know where we are, does she? Sure you didn't casually let that slip?" 

"No! I'm not--well, maybe I am an idiot," he amended at her incredulous look. "But not that big an idiot." 

"You are an idiot if you think running down there and giving those people exactly what they want will help your friends. This is bait, and it has 'Hobson' written all over it." She put Addie on the floor; Addie half-rolled, half-scooted herself back to Cat and the blocks. 

Those people. Who'd nearly killed Toni three times now. "Then what do we do?"

"Nothing." 

"Like you did when you saw Winslow's name in the paper?"

"You know what, I did go down there. And I nearly got shot myself, so maybe that should convince you it's the stupidest thing you could do!" 

"You went because he's your partner. Marissa's mine." His partner who knew he fought with Brigatti over stupid stuff all the time. Gary was pretty sure she wouldn't think this fight was stupid. "I look out for Marissa. It's what I do."

Toni's mouth twisted into a half-smile. "From this end, seems like she does a lot of looking out for you. So maybe she can look out for herself, too. Do you know how many times she's lied to me for you? Because I've lost count."

Gary started to tell her Marissa wasn't a liar, but actually, she was. For him. Because he asked her to lie a lot more than she wanted to. Now, even if the Guyettes weren't behind this, she'd have to sit in a police station and lie some more. Again, for him.

"Crumb's figured it out, if she hasn't," Toni went on, "and they both know by now exactly what I'm telling you. They may be uncomfortable, they may not get much sleep. But they won't get hurt, and if you don't go down there, neither will we."

"What makes you so sure?"

"Logic." She stuck up a finger for each point. "They can't get to Rachel without Addie. They can't get to Addie unless they get to me. They can't get to me unless they get to you. They're trying to use your friends to do just that."

"That's some chain of command."

"Chain of fools if you do what they expect. For once, Hobson, once in this whole mess, would you do what I'm telling you? Guyette's mole, whoever it is, isn't the only one down there. Marissa and Crumb are perfectly safe. Banks and Crumb are friends--hell, no one who worked with Crumb will believe this for an instant."

Gary suspected she was avalanching words at him to keep him from running out the door. "They believe it enough to hold him for questioning. And what about Marissa? She's not one of your club."

"You think Crumb'll let anything happen to her? Hell, if he lets them bring her in, it's because he thinks she's safer there than at McGinty's or at home."

He ran a hand through his hair. What kind of mess had he gotten them into?

"Don't worry about it," Toni said more gently. "They'll keep them there for a night, ask a few questions, and when you don't show up for them to follow back to me, they will send them home. End of story."

"No, it's not. If it's in the paper, it's there for a reason. I have to do something."

"Look, Hobson, I like them, too. If your paper said they were going to be hurt, or even officially charged with anything, of course I'd let you go. But they're not. We're all going to survive this, and you need to calm the hell down."

"Calm down, right." But he let out some of his frustration in a huffed breath. "I feel like an idiot doing nothing."

"Taking care of Addie is not nothing. I couldn't have kept Winslow from getting shot if you hadn't been with her today." She gestured at Addie, who whapped the boxes together. She must have sensed them watching her, because she looked up at him with her big brown eyes, wondering why he'd abandoned their game. He felt pulled toward her, toward Toni, toward Marissa and Crumb--pulled in so many directions by all the _or_ s in his life he didn't even know which way was forward anymore. 

"Okay, then, what do we do?"

"You help her build her tower."

He wasn't ready to give in until Toni took a step closer, close enough to put a flat palm on his chest. Exhausted creases framed her mouth, but her chin was set high, and something--conviction? determination? Maybe just faith she was right--sparked in the depths of her dark eyes. "We sit on our butts and let Rachel testify tomorrow. We win."

"I could use a win." He figured she could, too. "You sure they'll be okay?"

She held his gaze, unblinking. "I am."

"Okay." He nodded, dropped the paper on the counter. "Okay."

Stepping away from her touch took almost as much will as agreeing to stay out of the story. Sitting with Addie, entertaining her with makeshift toys and games, helped, especially when she laughed her gurgly laugh, or when he looked over at Toni, absorbed in the files and her diagrams, rubbing the side of her head or her neck. It was enough to keep him in the condo. That, and the fact he knew what Marissa would say if he tried to save her when she didn't really need it. But whenever he pictured her in an interrogation room or a holding cell, he knocked the towers over himself.

At some point, Addie decided he was a better jungle gym than an engineer. She pulled herself up on his knees, his arms, his shoulders; she clambered onto his lap then threw herself backward, trusting him to catch her. She was balancing on her tiptoes, clinging to his shoulder, when Toni wandered over to the sofa with an armful of files, muttering something about explosives.

"How's that?" Gary asked. Addie let go and tottered backward. He guided her to a landing on Cat's back, where she flipped herself over, clutching Cat's fur.

"Just wondering if anyone on my first task force ever worked Bomb Squad."

Gary kept an eye on her as he lay back and used Addie like a dumbbell to do some chest presses, much to her delight. Toni flipped through the files with one hand and scribbled on her notepad with the other, as if she could doodle the bare-bones information into answers. When she finally threw the pen on the coffee table with a growl, he said, "Here, you take over." He set Addie on the floor and handed Toni the boxes. "I'll make dinner."

She watched him as he made his way to the kitchen. "You're not limping as much."

"Yeah." He hadn't even thought about his ankle lately. Then he realized Toni was sitting on the floor in an invisible pool of Cat's dander. "You haven't been sneezing."

She wrinkled her nose and shoved Cat away, but Cat only went as far as the television stand. "Must be the Sudafed."

"Yeah. Must be."

Gary made up dinner from a few things he found in the freezer and cabinets--chicken breasts and rice and veggies. It wasn't nearly as good as what he could have done in McGinty's kitchen. But who knew if anyone was cooking over there tonight. He glanced at the paper as he plated the meal; the story hadn't changed. 

"They're fine," Toni said. She brought Addie to the high chair and buckled her in.

"Yeah. Fine." Like she was fine with that weapons-grade headache and those bruises. But she was also right. They were okay, if not perfect. All of them. They were going to win.

Toni pulled Addie's high chair up to the island and gave her a mix of jar stuff--green this time--and some of the rice and vegetables. Gary plopped a bottle of Tabasco on the island and sat next to her. 

"What's that for?"

"Covers up the taste." Gary pushed a plate toward her. "Or lack of it."

"I don't know what you're talking about. This looks great. Plus, I didn't have to cook it."

"You don't like to cook?"

She actually cracked a smile. "My family is Italian and Puerto Rican. I'm required by blood to like cooking. And I do. I just don't have time to do it very often. You seem to like it."

"I do own a restaurant." He fingered the paper, then pushed it away. Cat would tell him if it changed.

Addie two-fisted the rice and smashed carrots and peas, dropping at least half her dinner to the floor. Toni zoned out, pushing her food around her plate without taking a bite. Gary reached across her to scoop up a couple peas and plop them on Addie's tray. Toni stared at the sink. "Hey." He nudged her shoulder. "I can't tell the kid to eat if you won't. You in there?"

She stabbed at her plate with a fork, missing the food entirely. "I don't get it."

"Chicken and rice? It's pretty simple stuff."

"What the hell Mike did with that information, if he really had it. Why they're trying to draw us out. What they want with Addie."

"I don't know." Gary broke off, watching the eyelids of the witness in question droop as she mashed the peas. "What's wrong with her?"

Toni blinked back into focus. She touched Addie's hair, and Addie nuzzled her cheek into Toni's palm. "She's tired. Can't really blame her." She tickled Addie under the chin, eliciting a sleepy giggle, and threw him a curve ball. "Did you want kids, back when you were married?"

Gary swallowed too quickly, and a grain of rice went down wrong. "Yeah," he choked out between coughs and a gulp of water. He side-eyed Toni over the rim of his glass; she was _with_ him, watching and waiting for an answer. "But my wife didn't, at least not right away. We were young, and when we started growing up, we changed in different directions, wanted different things."

"What was it you wanted?"

He waggled his fingers at Addie, who was losing the battle to keep her eyes open. "Actually, this. Whatever it is we're pretending here, that's what I thought I wanted."

"And now?"

Now he had the paper to deal with every day. It would keep coming, no matter how many relationships, how many _ands_ , he added to his life. But even though it had taken him four years, he'd come to believe it was possible to cope with the paper and...more. He didn't know exactly how, but he was pretty sure he'd figure it out when the time came. "Now I know it will always be more complicated than that fantasy. Tell you the truth, I like complicated. Keeps things interesting."

"I bet." Addie's eyes closed, and this time they stayed closed. Toni swept the debris on the high chair tray to one side and eased Addie's head down to the surface. She untied the bib, let her hand linger in Addie's curls. "Why does she fight sleep? She's so good at it once she gives in."

"What about you?" Gary asked.

"I love sleep. Just don't get enough of it."

"I meant, do you want kids?"

"Someday, maybe. If I knew they'd be this cute. They do complicate things."

Funny, Gary thought. She looked a lot less frustrated, a lot less worried about complications, when she was playing with Addie's hair than she had going over her files. "Guess I'll have to wait for the rave reviews on my cooking," he finally said. He got up and freed Addie from the high chair, and she snuggled into his shoulder--a perfect fit. Maybe a little too perfect, the way holding her calmed his blood pressure on a night when his friends might be in trouble.

"Wow," Toni said, rubbing her thumb along the sole of Addie's dangling foot. "You are so far gone for her."

"Why do you think I'm still here?"

She let that half smile slip out again, but didn't quite meet his eyes. "I can come up with a few reasons." She got up, took a clean bottle out of the dishwasher, and mixed the midnight feeding, then held the bottle out to him. "I think you should sleep on the bed tonight." His fingers--both their fingers--froze, centimeters apart. "Don't get ideas," she added quickly. "I'm taking the sofa. Don't want you sneaking out again."

Even with the kid between them--with _everything_ between them--he couldn't help wanting to kiss her again. At least. "We could--"

"No. We can't."

"But I'm--"

"Bored. You're bored, Hobson. And I'm exhausted. Go."

He took the bottle with a sigh. It had been way too much to hope for. "Come on, Addie. We know when we're beaten."

"No," Toni said, suddenly serious again. "Remember--we get through tomorrow. We win."

~*~*~*~

Maybe she was teething, maybe she missed her mom, but Addie didn't sleep for any stretch longer than two hours that night. Toni heard her at eleven-thirty when she cried for five minutes and Hobson shushed her back to sleep; at one when he paced the hallway for half an hour or so, muttering to her in a soothing tone; at sometime after two-thirty when he came out to make her a second bottle; and at four, when twenty minutes of barky whining sent Toni into the bedroom, where Hobson lay half-dozing with Addie atop his chest trying to beat him awake. He sat up straight when Toni lifted Addie out of his arms.

"I've got her. She's okay. 'S okay," he mumbled, grabbing for Addie and snagging a foot. The only light was a yellow sliver from the hallway, but Toni was pretty sure his eyes were still closed. 

She pried his hand away, even though it meant letting Addie yank at a handful of her own hair. "I've got this one. Get some rest." She reached for Fred on the pillow next to him.

He caught her fingers. "Paper here?"

"It's four in the morning."

"'Kay." He dropped back onto the bed and was snoring by the time Toni closed the door. 

Hoping one night--or a handful of nights--of a botched routine wouldn't ruin Addie for life, Toni made up another bottle and settled in with her on the couch. The kid was snuggling drowsily, if not quite asleep, in a few minutes. Eyes closed, she tossed her head back and forth with the bottle in her mouth and screwed up her face to cry the minute Toni tried to take it away. Once she'd drained it, though, she let Toni sub in Fred. It wasn't long before her breath evened out and she was dreaming whatever it was babies dreamed.

Which left Toni wide awake with the lights of Chicago's skyline and her own churning thoughts. Despite what she had told Hobson to get him to stay put, she wasn't sure things would work out. She couldn't find a shred of information in the files to tie anyone on her task force to the Guyettes, except Eric Delano, and she had nothing on him she could take to Banks, let alone Ora Brook. There was nothing she could do to stop the threat to Addie, to the trial--nothing but sit around this condo and wait for it to be over. And while Addie, cuddled in her arms and making popping sounds with her lips, was more than enough reason to keep to the plan she'd talked--okay, browbeaten--Hobson into, Toni couldn't turn away from the surety that out in the city somewhere, there were people who wanted their hands on this little girl. That they'd kill her, kill Hobson, to get to her. And that there wasn't a damn thing she could do about it.

She tried reading the Harry Potter book to take her mind off everything and put herself to sleep, but all the references to magic brought her thoughts back around to Hobson's newspaper. The skyscape, faintly tinged with dawn, blurred and danced as she tried to work out how it figured into the case. It was a handy warning, sure, but she didn't like the way it kept pulling his focus away from their goal. It was one thing for him to invent workarounds to help strangers, but for it to tell him about Marissa and Crumb when it wasn't that big a deal and he couldn't--and shouldn't--do anything about it just didn't seem fair.

Of course it was less than fair for her to expect him to drop everything for her case. Not to mention it was a little less than sane to think a magic newspaper had intent, or an understanding of its recipient's psychology. Gary Hobson was not Harry Potter. Paul would shit a brick if she told him Hobson's secret. Banks would pull her off the case and bust her down to beat cop if she told him she believed it. 

Even though she did. Did that make her Hermione Granger?

The blurry lights and her spiraling thoughts weren't helping her headache. She closed her eyes, and when she opened them again, it was truly morning and Hobson was banging around in the kitchen with Addie on his hip. 

"Don't make her another bottle," Toni said when she saw Hobson fumbling with the can of powdered formula. "Kid'll float away on her own diaper after last night. Heya, bug." She took Addie from Hobson and kissed the top of her head. "I'll change her. Get a shower while the coffee brews," she suggested. "Take your time, 'cause you're not going anywhere." She planned to spend the morning figuring out, once and for all, who the leak was and what they wanted with Addie. All the pieces were within her grasp; she just needed a clear head to put them together.

"Yeah?" He went over to the security panel and checked the video screen. "Guess not." He followed her into the bedroom and started digging through the backpack. "That mean I can wear my plaid shirt?"

She shrugged, pulling at the diaper tabs. The thing weighed almost as much as Addie. "Not like anybody'll see you."

Hobson ran a hand through his hair, making it stand on end. Addie giggled, and he stuck out his tongue at her. "Maybe you're right. Paper's not here yet. Still, I want to know about Marissa and Crumb."

"There are other ways to find out." Luckily, he didn't ask what they were. She was too tired and fuzzy-headed to come up with any; she put the clean diaper on backward with her first try. "We need protein," she told Addie, when she'd dressed her in another ruffled sunsuit--yellow this time. The kid was bright-eyed and happy, ready to go again, even though she'd had almost as little sleep as Toni or Hobson. She sat in the high chair gnawing on Fred's bill while Toni made omelets with deli ham and frozen egg product.

"Are you kidding me?" Hobson asked when she handed him a plate. Hair damp, and sure enough, wearing a lightweight plaid shirt that would have made great curtains for a fishing shack, he was the quintessential version of Hobson she'd come to know--stubbled chin, crinkle-cornered eyes, dopey smile. Confusing as hell. Exhausted as she was, a spark ran up her arm when their fingers brushed in the exchange.

"Told you I can cook, though I'm not sure this proves it. No fresh ingredients. Next time, I'll have to take you to Humbolt Park Market for avocados and tomatoes and--oh, what?"

He flashed a big grin. "Next time. I like the sound of that."

"Shut up and pour my coffee."

They ate quickly. Toni just needed food, but Hobson cast a glance at the elevator with every other bite. "You're not going anywhere," she repeated. "So don't worry about your newspaper." 

"I want to know if they're okay."

"Like I said, we can have someone check on them. Winslow or Paul--" She was interrupted by Addie banging on her tray and kicking the chair. "All done?" Toni put her on the floor to crawl around, then collected the dishes. 

"I'm going to shave." Hobson headed for the bathroom. 

While Toni was shifting dishes, clean to the cupboards, dirty to the dishwasher, Addie crawled over to the sliding door and banged on it. Toni downed the last of her coffee, though it didn't seem to be helping, then went to her. "Come on, kid, let's not break the building."

"Bo!" Addie insisted. Toni looked through the glass. Hobson's cat was out on the balcony, perched atop the teak table. And a copy of the _Sun-Times_.

She could turn away. Not tell him. She was too tired to have another fight about the right thing to do, which was most definitely staying put.

"Bo bo BO!"

She could press whatever button drew the shades, darkened the windows. The cat stared at her through the glass, and Addie kept right on yelling. Addie, who would've been gone if not for Hobson and his paper.

Toni sighed, nudged Addie clear of the door, and pressed the button to open it. The cat mewed at her. "Can it, Fur Face. I ought to toss this thing over the railing." But they both knew she couldn't. 

She took the paper, backed away from the cat, scooped up Addie as the door closed--and hated just about everything when she read the headline plastered across the top of the front page: _Key Witness Dies; Guyette Trial Suspended_. 

Her brain buzzed and her vision went blurry. Addie pulling handfuls of her hair didn't help. But the photo of a grey SUV plowed into a tan Crown Vic and key phrases from the article jackhammered her consciousness: "...traffic accident...Jackson and LaSalle...cause unclear...also killed Pemberton's police escort, Detective Paul Armstrong...following a two-car collision, the car carrying Armstrong and Pemberton exploded at approximately eight-fifty yesterday morning..."

"Gah!" Addie shouted through a mouthful of Toni's hair, and that spurred her out of shell shock. 

"Hobson!"

He stumbled down the hall, strips of shaving cream still clinging to his neck. "What happened? Are you--God, Toni, what's wrong?"

She tossed the paper and Addie at him and ran for the phone. Paul wasn't answering his cell. It was after eight, so they were probably on the move already. She hustled to the bedroom, Hobson on her heels. "I know this car," he said. "The SUV with the racing stripe. I saw it leaving the subdivision out in Oak Brook."

"They're going after Rachel so she won't testify." She grabbed clothes, not caring if they were clean, not even caring if they were hers. "It's so blatant, it's--they're desperate."

"Don't panic," he said, though he'd gone pale. "It's here so we can stop it."

She whirled on him. How could he say that with Addie right there in his arms? "So _I_ can stop it."

"No, not this time. You're not--"

"Yes, this time. _Especially_ this time." There was a clock in her head, ticking down like the timer on a cartoon bomb to the moment of impact. She half-shut the door. "I can do this. I saved Winslow. Paul is as good as my partner. And Rachel is my witness." She pulled on jeans, a t-shirt, her holster and Marissa's sweater. 

"I know you can. It's just--"

She threw the door open, and he jumped back. "It's just you and me. And them. Rachel, Paul--" And Banks, maybe, and Meredith and Grace--God, she'd have to tell Meredith if she messed this up. "And Addie." Who was currently scooting toward the bathroom. "Us against the whole Guyette organization. Against people with guns and C-4 and stupid hairy hands, and--" She sighed. "--a mole in my department, probably."

"I don't want you getting hurt again. Or shot at or--"

"Razor!" Toni shouted. Addie had found Hobson's on the bathroom floor and had a grip on the orange plastic handle. He swooped in and scooped her up, prying the razor free despite her protests. "She could have cut herself, she could have--" Toni swallowed against the hysteria scraping her voice. "I need you with her, Hobson. She trusts you." 

Hobson must have heard her near-panic, because he nodded, tossing the razor on the counter and letting Addie gnaw on his finger. "Okay. Okay."

 _Tick. Tick._ Toni started back toward the living room. "Look, if you stay with her, I'll track down Marissa and Crumb once this is over, make sure they're okay."

"Really?"

She retrieved the Browning from the kitchen cupboard where she'd stashed it the night before. "Really. Just tell me how to stop the accident." 

"Okay, so--" He shifted Addie to one side and spread the paper out on the island. "If you can stop the accident, there won't be an explosion."

"There's never an explosion, except in the movies."

"Or at your safe house. Sure this is an accident?"

"Pretty damn sure it's not."

He set Addie down on the floor, aiming her at the improvised blocks. "You can still stop it. Don't let them get to that intersection."

"Right. I'll just waltz over to each of the five hotels they might be staying at until I find them and tell them to take an alternate route," she snapped. 

"You don't have to do that. Just get to the intersection--this time of morning, you can jump on the Brown Line into the Loop, it comes every few minutes. Get in the way of Armstrong's car and wave it down, throw out some obstacle. Or you can distract the other driver."

"That's your genius plan? How many times have you done this?"

"Sometimes I have to be there and, you know--" He waved a hand. "--improvise." Over in the living room, Addie imitated his gesture with a happy chortle. She didn't know her mom was due to die in half an hour. 

She'd never know. Rachel wasn't going to die. As long as she could stop that damn clock. "If anyone comes--"

"I'll conk 'em on the head with Harry Potter."

"Right." Toni marched to the elevator and pressed the call button, but Hobson followed her and grabbed her arm. 

"Brigat--Toni--" He held out the newspaper. "You should take this."

She thought about it for a second. She'd have all the details. She might even know what to do--

\--and she'd look ridiculous. Besides, it would never fit in her back pocket the way it fit in his. 

"You keep it." She'd have to trust him not to hare off after some side story. "Call Paul if you see anything you need to tell me. Just remember--" 

"Addie comes first. We are staying right here, I swear. But listen--" He tugged her closer. "I have not gone through the past three days just to lose you now." He gulped. "Or ever."

The clock ticked, but she didn't pull away. "You won't lose me. We are going to win."

Like the big dork he was, he kissed her again. Pulled her in and planted one on her that sent everything--panic, headache, exhaustion, and that damn ticking clock--down into the depths, replacing them with warmth and electricity. She rose onto her toes, pushing back, losing herself in the energy. Everything that had ever sparked between them caught flame, and she deepened it, needing more--but he was the one who broke it off when the elevator door slid open.

"Yeah," he whispered, one hand still cupped around the back of her neck. "We are." He picked up Addie, who'd crawled over and pulled herself up on his jeans. "Go save them."

Toni reeled back, hid her complete confusion with a kiss on the top of Addie's head. "Be good, baby bug."

"You come back," Hobson said. "We'll be here."

~*~*~*~


	11. Chapter 11

Deciding to take her chances on foot, Toni half-jogged across the river at the La Salle Street Bridge. The thought of being trapped on the L, even for a few minutes, while that kiss replayed in her head scared her off Hobson's plan. It was better to keep moving toward Rachel and Paul and away from her own thoughts.

She pushed her way into the Loop, through cranky crowds and air as thick and wet as stew. It'd been a lot easier when Hobson plotted it out in an air-conditioned apartment. _Create an obstacle. Distract the driver._ How was she supposed to do that in the melee of traffic? If she were the size of Godzilla, maybe she'd get some driver's attention. But the sheer volume of cars and SUVs and trucks and busses meant she might not even see Paul's car in time, let alone the guy who planned to ram it. 

She reached the intersection of Jackson and LaSalle at eight-forty and stood there for what felt like thirty minutes. According to her watch it was more like three. It was too long, too many ticks of the clock. She had to _do_ something, but what? There were three CPD-sanctioned hotels in one direction, two in another. She went with the odds and jogged a block toward the three, keeping to the curb in hopes Paul would see her. There was no sign of him in the traffic headed into the heart of the Loop. She glanced down at her watch. Eight-forty-six. 

Later, she was never sure if the shriek of metal came right before or right after she took off running back to the intersection. As she reached it, a truck swerved and clipped its side mirror off on a lamppost to avoid the mangled mess of a grey SUV with a black racing stripe plowed into the rear driver's side of a tan Crown Vic. Paul's car was sandwiched between the SUV and a row of half-toppled newspaper vending boxes. Another Vic, a blue one, pulled up behind the truck, but Toni didn't stop to see who was in it. 

"Chicago PD!" She elbowed her way through the pedestrians who'd stopped to watch, craning her neck to get a look at the crippled Vic while she reached for her gun. A big guy in grey coveralls was pushing the newspaper boxes away from the passenger side doors. "Get away from the--"

"Get back! The car's gonna blow!" The second voice crashed into hers. While the crowd screamed and scurried away, a hand--gnarled fingers, trim nails--wrapped around her arm and yanked her back. The man had a couple inches and about forty years on her. "The other driver's helping them. Said he smells gas. You need to stay away, little lady." He was probably an innocent bystander, but his condescending tone and the way his fingers dug into her arm pissed her off. She drove her heel into the top of his shoe, and he released her with a yelp. Toni took off and didn't look back. 

The damn Browning was stuck in her holster, and she didn't have time to wrangle it out. The guy in coveralls had shoved the newspaper boxes away and bent over the front door of the Vic. Between his bulk and the billowing airbags, she couldn't make out Rachel or Paul. But she heard, thank God, Rachel's muffled voice from the back seat. "Get me out!"

"Police, back off," she shouted, but the guy ignored her. She knocked into his shoulder with her own. Something fell from his hand; he howled and turned on her, face wrenched with pain all out of proportion to her hit. As if he had some other injury there already. 

Like a three-day-old gunshot wound.

She finally tugged the Browning free; at the same moment, she saw the muzzle of a silencer on the gun at his feet. "Back off right now," she ordered. Still gripping his shoulder, he launched himself at her. She sidestepped him and drove the butt of the Browning hard into his shoulder, then the back of his head. He tumbled over the newspaper boxes and landed on the sidewalk, howling like he had in the backyard of her safe house. 

"Brigatti." Carla Burkhead ran up to her, brown hair frizzing right out of her ponytail. "We got stuck a few cars behind Armstrong--what the hell happened?"

Toni nodded at the half-conscious guy on the sidewalk. "Cuff him and call a bomb squad." She cast a glance at the crowd, but there was no sign of the first man who'd tried to hold her off. She kicked and pulled at the back door and it finally popped open, just as Aaron Perez ran up with a crow bar.

Rachel scrambled out. "What the fuck is going on?" 

She pushed Rachel toward Perez and took the crow bar. "Get her to the chase car." The front airbag thrashed around, which meant Paul was alive. 

"But Toni--" Rachel said. 

"Go with him!" she insisted. Perez took Rachel's arm and steered her away. The crow bar didn't work--she couldn't get it wedged into the seam between the smashed-in front door and the frame. She crawled in the backseat. "Paul? You all right?"

"Think so." His voice was muffled; his arms flailed out from under the marshmallow poof of the air bag. Toni hauled on the front seat until it bent backward, and Paul crawled and sputtered his way out of the car. Though he stood on his own two feet, a thin trail of blood leaked from his nose. He wiped it on the cuff of his shirt while Toni retrieved the gun the guy in coveralls had dropped. "What the hell was that?"

"That was attempted murder." She marched over to Burkhead, who had the suspect cuffed and sitting propped up against a storefront. Toni handed her the gun. "And he's going down for it."

"You stupid bitch," he growled. "They came out of nowhere; I couldn't stop, and then I tried to _help_."

"With a gun? Or were you going to help them out by blowing them up, like you tried to do in Oak Brook the other day?" She motioned toward his shoulder. "You were going to shoot them and then blow up the evidence. Where are the explosives for this one? In the Tahoe?"

Paul put a hand on her shoulder; Toni wasn't sure if he was trying to hold her back or hold himself up. "What are you talking about?"

Sirens cut through the crowd noises, knifed into her head. The bomb unit rushed in to set up a perimeter, and Toni pointed Carla, who hauled the suspect to his feet, toward a marked car. "Take him in. I want to talk to him after I get these two to the courthouse. For the trial," she added, meeting the guy's glare with a grim smile of her own. "Where she's going to testify." Because he'd lost. They'd all lost. She spun on her heel and steered Paul toward the chase car. When they reached it, Rachel pushed the door into Perez's ass and jumped out. 

"You all right?" she asked Paul. Before he could even nod, she turned on Toni. "What the hell was that? Where's Addie?"

"Get in the car. Keys," she ordered Perez, and he handed them over. "I'll get them to the courthouse. Go with Carla."

"Where is she?" Perez asked.

"With the witness," Paul said.

"Suspect," Toni corrected. She marched around to the driver's side. Her internal clock was quieter now, but it still felt like someone, or something, was counting off seconds, pushing her forward. 

"Sure you're okay?" she asked Paul as they buckled in, trying to banish the thought of a full-dress funeral, of Meredith and Grace being handed a badge and a hat. Was this part of the magic newspaper, too, this rush of gratitude that she could save someone? No wonder Hobson kept doing it. 

Rachel leaned in from the back seat. "Where is Addie?" 

"Put on your seat belt." Toni waited until she did before she went on. "Addie's completely safe. She's with Hobson." She shot a quieting look at Paul; she could see his questions working their way out of the fog of shock. His jaw twitched, but he kept it shut. In the rearview, she watched Rachel bite her lip and clench her fists. "If you get through today, you'll see her tonight." 

"I need to hold her. I--that car hit and I couldn't think of anything but her, how I'd never see her again--damn it, Toni--"

Even though Rachel was only a few years younger than her, in that moment it felt like decades. "They tried to kill you. Again." Toni understood how much Rachel needed her daughter, but she needed to testify and put an end to this. "That shouldn't make you scared. It should piss you off. It should make you want to testify even more. For Mike, and for Addie, and most of all, for yourself. Because you're doing the right thing, and for once, the good guys in this mess are going to win."

Rachel drew in a breath and nodded. "Let's go."

Paul waited until she pulled into traffic before he asked, "How'd you know?"

"I didn't. I was just out--" They passed a bakery. "--getting donuts."

"All the way down here?"

"We needed one specific kind of donut. Jelly-filled. Grape. You know Hobson, he's picky as hell."

"Not as well as you seem to," he muttered. "What made you think there were explosives?"

"Explosives?" Rachel squeaked.

"Just a guess," Toni said. "I winged that guy at the safe house; he was the one who tried to take Addie."

"Oh, God," Rachel whispered.

"Since there was an explosion there, I figured there might be one here."

Her sidelong glance at Paul told her he wasn't quite buying it, but they'd reached the courthouse. She parked in a reserved spot near the side entrance. "Ready?" she asked Rachel, who nodded, resolute. Toni and Paul flanked her and they ducked the fringe of the crowd of reporters gathered in front of the building. 

"Vermin," Paul said, and hustled Rachel in the door, but Toni turned at the click and whirr of a camera a few feet behind.

"Oh, hey, Brigatti." The camera came down, revealing a familiar face. Miguel Diaz flashed her a wink. "Sorry, I didn't realize it was you."

For once, she was glad to see the guy. What better way to send a signal to Hobson that everything was okay? "Put it on the front page, Diaz," she told him. "Dennis Guyette is going down."

~*~*~*~

The paper changed at eight-fifty-one. Gary saw it happen. _Key Witness and Detective Rescued from Wreck_ , the new headline read. The front page still featured a photo of the car and the SUV smashed together, but they weren't charred or missing all the pieces they had before. On page five, where the story continued, there was a headshot of Armstrong and a candid of Toni entering the courthouse. He couldn't blame her for going with Rachel, who was, after all, her main responsibility, but she'd promised to check on Crumb and Marissa. Until she took care of everything on her list, he couldn't do anything but wait and wish he could kiss her again, even though he was probably an idiot for doing it in the first place.

He didn't like waiting. He'd never been good at it, had never had much practice. He had one way to cope with it, but it was hard to pace around the living room when he had to stop every few minutes to change a diaper, direct Addie's attention away from anything with sharp edges, or pull cords, remotes, the cell phone, and his shoes out of her mouth. He tried sitting on the floor with her for a while, making Fred waddle around while she grabbed for him and giggled when Gary let her catch the toy.

"What do you think Toni's up to, huh? Hey, no, not that." He extracted a drool-covered remote from her mouth, ignoring her frustrated noises of protest. The lack of sleep was catching up with both of them. "Not gonna be any Barney rotting your brain on my watch."

"Ba!" Addie slammed the remote on the floor.

"Yeah, that's what we think of Barney. Aunt Toni will be proud. I bet your mom will be, too. Here--" He reached for Fred, but Cat strolled in between Gary and Addie and chomped his teeth on Fred's bill. Addie squealed. This was a whole new game. But Cat wouldn't give up Fred when Addie flopped herself forward and pulled at the toy, both arms around its belly. Gary was going to let the two of them work it out--he hadn't checked the paper in five minutes and it was out of reach over on the island--but Addie scowled and let out an "Aha-ha-ha," angrier with each syllable. 

"Hey, Cat, c'mon, she doesn't want to play anymore." Gary tugged at Fred, and it came free with a little ripping sound and a yowl from Cat. "What is your prob--uh-oh." A clump of stuffing poked out of a tear in Fred's bill.

Addie stared from Gary to Fred and back, fingers in her mouth, scowl deepening. "Now look what you did," he snapped at Cat. "No, no, Addie, it's okay, look." He put two fingers into the hole and waved Fred around. "It's kind of like a puppet, it--huh." His finger hit something small, flat, and hard. Addie crawled over to him and tugged on Fred's tail. "Okay, just a sec." He pulled the thing out of Fred's bill and handed the toy to Addie. "There you go."

He left her on the floor, sniffling and drooling on Fred, and took the thing over to the kitchen island, where he could examine it under the light. It was mostly black plastic, a little less than an inch square with a few metal bits at one end like flattened teeth, and a number inscribed on the other side. He turned it over in his fingers. It reminded him of the memory chip the phone store tech had salvaged from the wreck of Marissa's cell last month, though this was a bit bigger. The tech had plugged it into some special device on her computer and transferred all Marissa's contacts into the new phone. What the heck was something like that doing in a baby's toy?

Still turning the chip in his fingers, he sat on the couch and watched Addie play. Fred had come from Mike Pemberton, the computer whiz. Rachel found it after he died and thought he meant to give it to Addie.

If this chip was the real thing--if it really did hold evidence Maurice Guyette was involved in the mob--it would explain why the family kept trying to get their hands on Addie. But if they'd known exactly where this chip was, they would have taken Fred at the safe house. Maybe they just knew the evidence was connected to Addie somehow. Why hadn't Mike Pemberton turned it over to the prosecution?

"Aunt Toni was right all along," Gary muttered. "Should've known." He had to get this to her. He wasn't handing it off to anyone else. But he had to protect Addie as well. What now?

Well, first he'd take care of the fact she sat rocking on her diapered butt, indignant tears still drying on her face. He picked up her and Fred. "We can fix it, kid. Don't worry." To Cat, who sat blinking up at Gary, he said, "You couldn't have done this sooner?" 

He nabbed one of the plastic boxes and shut the chip inside, then stowed it in back of a high kitchen cupboard. No one knew where they were, he reminded himself. They wouldn't come looking for it anytime soon. And soon, Toni would be pushing the elevator call button--as long as he hadn't scared her off with that kiss.

Addie stuck her fingers into Fred's bill, pulled out some fluff, and tried to eat it. "It's not cotton candy," Gary said at the face she made. He scooped as much of it as he could out of her mouth and shoved it back into Fred, then bounced Addie while he checked the paper--no change--and dug through the backpack. He'd seen a first aid kit sometime in the past few days, and there it was, shoved down at the bottom, the same small kit they usually kept in the file cabinet at McGinty's. "Thank you," he whispered, as if Marissa, who must have thrown it in there, and his mom, who'd insisted he learn how to sew on buttons, could hear him. 

It wasn't a pretty repair job; he might just as easily have stapled it. But in a few minutes--a few minutes in which Toni should have been back--he had the bill sewn shut, a little bit flatter and less evenly rounded than before. It was good enough for Addie, who sat next to him on the sofa, sucking on one of Fred's paws and watching Gary's every move. "You okay now?" he asked as he bit off the thread. He tickled her toes, and finally got a smile in response. "Work with me, will ya?" he asked Cat when he slid Addie and Fred back to the floor. "Leave her alone while I get more coffee."

Cat let out a pissed-off meow and took a series of leaps from floor to sofa to stool and finally to the island, where he landed atop the open newspaper and fixed Gary with an all-too familiar look. Dread made Gary's throat close. He picked up Addie and Fred. She came first, she needed him, and all of a sudden he didn't want her out of arm's reach.

The paper had changed. The photo of the crumpled cars that had been on the first page was now on page five. 

"'...uncertain how or if the trial will go forward, given the day's events,'" he read. Cat stared at him. "What events?"

He flipped to the front page, which displayed the photo of Toni walking into the courthouse. It took a half second for the headline to register. When it did, he took a step back from the island, pulling Addie in close.

_Chicago Detective Found Dead in Northside Station_

"No," Gary said out loud. "No, she's not." Addie squirmed, but he was paralyzed by what he read.

"Detective Antonia Brigatti was found dead in an interview room at Chicago PD's Northside Station at approximately eleven-fifteen this morning. Detective Brigatti had been conducting an interview with an eyewitness to a traffic accident. The witness's identity was not made public, nor was the cause of death.

"Testimony in Dennis Guyette's trial was suspended when news of Detective Brigatti's death reached the courtroom. The accident under investigation involved a witness in the trial."

Addie gave his shoulder a bite, and he realized he was holding her too tightly. "Sorry, bug. God, I'm sorry." This was his fault. He'd let her go alone. She'd gone to the station for him, to check on Marissa and Crumb, and even though the paper said--

The paper. His paper. It hadn't happened yet. He could stop her going to the station.

He spun in a circle, making Addie squeal, and found the phone on the coffee table. If anything counted as an emergency, this was it. He messed up Armstrong's number the first time, got through the second. "Pick _up_ , I don't care if you're at the courthouse, break a damn rule for once, for God's sake," he muttered as it rang. And rang. And went to voice mail. "Armstrong," he sputtered as soon as he heard the beep. "This is an emergency, a real emergency. It's Brigatti--don't let her go to the station, don't let her go anywhere alone. She'll understand, just tell her I called--please. It's her life."

He hung up and stumbled back to the island, tripping over his shoes and Addie's boxes. The paper hadn't changed. He had to get to Toni, and he couldn't leave Addie in the bathtub this time. He held her at arm's length. She kicked and giggled at him, all sweetness and trust. "You get it, don't you? You don't want this to happen any more than I do. I'm going to protect you, and I am not letting her die." He stuffed the phone in his pocket, then emptied out the backpack except for a few diapers and the paper. "See, I remembered what you need this time," he told Addie. "It'll be okay. And you," he added to Cat as he shouldered the backpack and wrapped Addie up in the quilt. "You just do whatever you do. Help me make this right. Which means she gets out of this alive, you hear me?"

Cat didn't answer, but he did ride down to the lobby with them, then streaked off to the west, the opposite direction of the station. Gary had the sense to half-jog a couple blocks away from the condo before he flagged down a cab. Toni would be proud if she--no, he'd make sure she lived, so she could hear about how he'd done it right this time.

He threw himself into the cab and tossed a pair of twenties at the driver, more than four times what the ride should cost. "Get me to the Northside police station as fast as you can."

"Hang on to the kid."

"Believe me, I won't let anything happen to her." He slipped a hand under the blanket, and Addie wrapped her fingers around one of his. "Just go."

The driver dropped them off on the curb across the street from the station, next to a dry cleaners with a boarded-up front window. Tucking the blanket more securely around Addie, Gary crossed the street, but hesitated before he approached the steps that led to the main doors. They were littered with cops on break. Who among them would Toni trust? He could duck down the alley and try the station's side entrance, but he'd bet money the door was locked. He'd have to wait for someone to come out.

This was Toni's life. She had friends in that station, and like she'd said, they couldn't all be on the Guyettes' payroll. He marched up the front steps, ignoring the curious looks and the whispers that trailed behind him. 

The guy manning the intake desk--freckled, bored-looking--wasn't someone Gary knew. He twirled a pen in his fingers while Gary readjusted the quilt around Addie's kicking feet. "I need to see Detective Brigatti."

The guy didn't look at a roster, didn't pick up a phone. "Not here."

"Yes, she is. Or she will be."

That caught his attention; the pen stopped moving "Okaaaay," he drawled. "You planning to wait until next week?"

He didn't have that long. "Let me speak to Detective Winslow instead."

The guy shifted a glance toward a stairway that, Gary knew from personal experience, led to the interrogation rooms. Where Marissa might be, and Crumb; where Toni was supposed to die in an hour or so. "He's busy."

Addie wiggled an arm free and tried to pull the blanket off her head. "He'll want to hear this."

"Then you can wait for him."

No, he couldn't. "Banks, then, Captain Banks."

"Not here." The guy's eyes narrowed. "Who did you say you are?"

There had to be somebody who'd help. "What about Zeke Crumb or Marissa Clark?"

"They cops, too?"

"No, they're here about a robbery." Gary stuck a hand under the blanket to calm Addie down. She registered her protest by biting it with her half-teeth. "Look, this is serious. I need to talk to somebody now."

"All right, all right, cool your jets." He got up and meandered into the warren of the bullpen.

Gary whipped the blanket off Addie; it wasn't doing her any good. She sniffled at him and whapped Fred against his arm a couple of times. "I know. We'll find her, and everything'll be okay." Gary craned his neck, trying to see where the intake guy had gone, but there was no sign of him. The bullpen was kind of deserted, actually. It spooked him a little.

He took a few steps toward the stairs. No one stopped him; the handful of people working in the bullpen didn't even look up. The interrogation rooms were on the third floor. If that's where they'd find Toni in an hour, logic said that's where she was, or should be soon.

Logic, and the fact she'd planned to come down here to find Marissa and Crumb, and, according to the paper, to talk to the witness in the accident. "Let's give it a shot, huh?" he asked Addie. "Well, maybe not a shot." He was really tired of guns. 

Once he got moving, Addie sucked in her sniffles and brightened up, calling out her nonsense syllables, which echoed off the linoleum tiled walls of the stairwell. A set of double doors on the third floor created a foyer for the hall of interrogation rooms, but the inner door to the hallway was locked. Gary pounded on the door, but no one came out. "What now?" he asked Addie. He turned for the door back out to the stairs, but it opened before he could get hold of it. 

Two guys in not-quite tailored suits crowded into the foyer. "Mr. Hobson?" said the taller one--Eric Delano. He was a few years rougher around the edges, and the thin mustache was new, but Gary recognized him from the file. He didn't know the shorter guy, who had a buzz cut and a wrestler's build.

"I understand you're looking for Detective Brigatti," the short guy said. "Why don't you come with us?"

"Who are you?" And how did they know his name?

They both flashed badges. "Porter, Robbery," the short one said.

"Delano." He looked a lot less sure of himself than Porter, casting quick glances back toward the stairway. "I work--"

"A desk, right?" Gary couldn't help it; he was standing there holding the baby the guy had failed to protect. Addie looked between them and Gary, a bit of his shirt squeezed in her fist. "That's what you get for running out on your job."

Delano's jaw clenched. "You've got the wrong end of the stick, Hobson. And you'd better--" 

"Come with us," Porter finished, nudging Delano. Still looking pissed off, Delano elbowed Gary out of the way to unlock the door behind him. 

"I want to see Brigatti," Gary said. Much as he'd hoped to get in that hallway a minute ago, now he was fairly sure she wasn't there yet, and he was entirely sure he didn't want to go with Delano. "Maybe I should wait at her desk." 

"Can't let you do that." Porter's tone was light, but he stood with his legs slightly apart, blocking the only way out. "The rooms down here have more space and privacy. For the baby. Hey, sweetiepie." He waggled his fingers at Addie, who ducked her head under Gary's chin.

This was a police station, Gary reminded himself. Like Toni had said last night, they had friends here. No way would these guys try anything, even if they were working for the Guyettes. So why did he feel so threatened?

Maybe because, once Delano had the door open, Porter advanced on him and Delano grabbed his arm, forcing him to backpedal down the poorly lit hallway--the hallway where Toni was supposed to die. Walls that had needed painting since before Gary moved to Chicago to go to college framed two rows of doors with small windows. He thought about Marissa and Crumb, who might still be in one of those rooms. "Hold up, I want to see if my friends are here."

They didn't slow down. Addie squirmed and whimpered, sounding as scared as Gary was starting to feel. He planted his feet. "Can we stop for a sec? I'm losing my grip on her." 

Still crowding him in, they stopped. Delano turned in his direction, but just missed eye contact, and a muscle in his cheek twitched. Porter put a hand on Addie's back. "I'll take her." He shoved his hand between Addie and Gary, trying to pry her free.

Gary twisted away from him; Addie let out a paint-peeling screech and tried to climb up Gary's chest, as if she could burrow away from Porter. Gary tried to duck the hands that were reaching for Addie, that were holding him back from his impulse to run down the hall and get the hell out of there. Fred fell, and the backpack slipped down Gary's arms, trapping them.

"Get them out of the hall, for God's sake," Delano whispered. While Addie kept up her angry, hitching cries, he and Porter grabbed Gary's elbows and propelled him to the end of the hall.

"Hey, wait, slow down, guys." Gary raised his voice, hoping someone else would hear. A door they'd already passed opened and a woman's voice asked what was going on, but before he could call out again, he'd been forced into a room whose door had no window. 

It closed with a thick _thump_ and Gary pulled away from their hands, letting the backpack fall from one arm at a time, never relinquishing his grip on Addie. "Don't you touch her," he said, though he was backed up against a filing cabinet and in no position to give commands. Addie curled herself into a tight, shuddering ball.

Porter backed up with a shrug, giving Gary a couple seconds to take in the bare-bones room: cinderblock walls, shelves with a few random rolls of toilet paper and towels. There was no two-way mirror, but there was the same kind of metal table bolted to the floor he'd seen in other interrogation rooms, along with a pair of ancient, uncomfortable-looking chairs. "What the hell is this place?"

"Waiting room." Porter slouched back against the table, unfazed. "I believe Detective Brigatti would want you--both of you," he added with a nod at Addie, "--to keep a low profile around here."

"She'd want to _see_ us," Gary insisted, "so why don't you go find her and tell her we're here? Do your job for once," he snapped at Delano.

Porter whistled, and Delano's ears turned red. "Calm down, Hobson."

"I'm supposed to calm down while you guys push me around, while you force me in here and try to take the kid away?"

"We're just tucking you away for safekeeping," Porter said.

Like hell they were. "I need to see Brigatti. So if you'd get out of my way--" He took a step toward the door, but Porter planted himself in front of it, and Delano's hand slid toward his hip. Toward his holster. Toward his gun. Gary froze. "Who do you guys really work for?" 

"The good people of Chicago." Porter was still putting on the act, giving him a genial, if somewhat smarmy, smile. He lifted his voice over Addie's insistent cries. "We're on your side, Hobson. From what I hear, you're kind of a legend around these parts. Too bad you're not such a good nanny. What's her problem, anyway?"

"She needs her stuffed animal." Gary looked down at Addie's blotchy, tear-stained face, and felt his heartbeat skitter. He might be able to handle himself if this got physical, but what would happen to her? "It fell out in the hallway. Let me go get it, and she'll quiet down."

"She's not bothering anyone. It's soundproof in here." Porter exchanged a look with Delano that Gary couldn't read. It was hard to think straight with Addie crying so hard. The part of his brain that should have been finding a way to get out of there was trying to decide if she really needed Fred, or if she understood even better than he did how much trouble they were in.

Delano picked up the backpack. "What's in this?"

"Just some baby stuff and a newspaper," Gary said, but Delano went through it anyway, piling everything on the table. "She needs that toy."

Porter caught Delano's eye, nodded toward the door. "We'll get it. Be right back." Gary tried to push past Delano to get hold of the door so he could get out, or at least call out, but Porter elbowed him in the side. "Oops, sorry," he said as Gary stumbled into the file cabinet. He tried to use his momentum to bounce off it and launch himself at the door, but Delano pulled his gun out of his holster and aimed it right between his eyes. Gary froze.

"You're staying here, Hobson."

"Damn it, Eric." Porter turned back, the door open just a crack. "We aren't doing it yet. Can't you follow a plan for once?" 

"What plan?" Gary looked between the two of them as Addie scooted up his chest and wrapped her little arms around his neck. "She's a baby! Brigatti--"

"Will join you here soon." Porter's cold tone and the grim set of his jaw told Gary just how big a mistake he'd made coming to the station. But what else could he have done? "Then we'll decide what to do with your little makeshift family." They left, Delano backing out with his gun, visibly shaking, pointed at Gary until the door thumped closed. 

The first thing Gary did was try the door, but of course it was locked. Much as he wanted to, he couldn't panic. Addie was already a wreck, her arms tight around his neck, which was coated in her snot and drool. He took a couple of bouncing steps, trying to rub away the image of that gun pointed at the both of them by rubbing her back. "Okay. It's all right. They're gone." For now. Probably not for long. "It's just you and me. See?" He turned her out to face the room. Not that there was anything there to comfort her, but seeing that the men had gone must have helped, because she hiccupped to a stop. 

Relieved as he was to have gotten that one thing right with her, Gary had to admit he'd messed up everything else. They were trapped; the only way out was the door. The thick, locked, soundproof door with no windows. 

_Found in an interview room_ , the paper had said about Toni. If they planned to kill her at the station, the only way to get away with it was to do it where no one could see or hear. In a room like this. Porter's assertion that she'd join them soon wasn't a comforting thought.

He sat Addie on the table and sank into the chair. "What do we do now, bug?" She looked the part, hair sticking up like antennae, eyes huge and round, seeing so much more than she could possibly understand. But from the way she scowled at him and flapped her hands, he'd bet money she knew they were in trouble. Either that, or she really was hopelessly attached to that platypus. She got hold of the diapers Delano had left on the table and flung them on the floor, one at a time, while Gary checked the paper.

The front page had changed again. Of course. The story about Toni's death shared space with one about the trial, but they were two separate stories. The details about Toni hadn't changed, but the other headline read, _Guyette Trial Suspended Before Testimony Begins_ , and the story said, "A key witness refused to testify, claiming shock in the aftermath of an earlier auto accident. No date for resumption has been given, and Dennis Guyette is free on bail."

Why would the stories be disconnected now? He didn't understand what he'd done.

"Ma!" Addie had run out of diapers to throw, so she turned on the paper, grabbing a corner to start a game of tug of war. 

"Come on, let me have that--" But she pulled so hard she tottered backward. Gary lunged to catch her and plopped her into his lap. When he rearranged the paper, page five was on top with another new headline.

_Bar Owner's Body Found in Chicago River_

Right underneath it was a headshot-- _his_ headshot--cropped from the photo of him and Chuck that hung behind the bar. There wasn't a whole lot of information, not even a cause or time of death. He was found in the north branch of the river near some industrial buildings west of this neighborhood. 

He took a deep breath and rubbed Addie's back, even though she'd relaxed enough with Delano and Porter gone that she didn't need soothing. It was his own hand that shook.

Another breath. Think. He got up to pace, three steps from the door to the shelves and back. Now he knew why Rachel wasn't going to testify. He'd said they'd have to kill him to take Addie, and that's what they were about to do. 

If by some miracle they didn't, he'd be able to tell Toni he was right about the source of the leak. If they both survived. They had to--Toni had to, at the very least. The paper was telling him because there was a way to stop her dying, like it had since the beginning of this thing. And none of those people would get their hands on Addie.

"They won't. I promise they won't," Gary whispered into the top of Addie's head. "We'll find a way to stop this. Aunt Toni will make sure you're safe." If that meant sacrificing him, Gary knew she'd do it. But it wouldn't come to that. He needed to be in the same place as Toni and they'd figure it out, like they always did. He needed to buy them all time, long enough for Armstrong to check his phone and hear his message.

"The phone." Gary pulled it out of his pocket, held it at arm's length to keep Addie from pushing buttons. He dialed Armstrong's number, but it went back to the main screen. No bars. The thing was useless. Lunging forward with a giggle, Addie grabbed it and stuck it in her mouth. "Give it here, don't break it," he started, but then he remembered the last time he'd broken a phone. 

He took it back, wiping drool off the cover with his thumb. What better way to buy time than to offer the Guyettes what they wanted? Which wasn't Addie--it never had been, not exactly. He just had to convince them he had the information Mike Pemberton had taken.

Praying for time, he wedged a fingernail under the cover.

~*~*~*~

While Paul went to the restroom to clean up his face, Toni escorted Rachel to a conference room to meet with the prosecuting team. "Good to see you again, Detective." Ora Brook shook Toni's hand with a warm smile, which faded into a grim, hard line when Toni explained what had happened. "You're sure it was the Guyettes?"

"Beyond a doubt," Toni said, "It's too soon to throw those charges into this trial. I don't have anything solid yet, but I will. It'll keep you busy for another year at least."

"I like that kind of busy." Ora turned to Rachel, who stood fidgeting next to Toni, her eyes big, dark blots in her pale face. "Are you up for this? If you're hurt, or too unsettled to testify the way we've planned, we can rearrange the order of witnesses."

"No," Toni and Rachel said together.

"I want this over," Rachel added, twisting her wedding ring on her finger. "I want Addie back."

"Tonight," Toni promised. 

While Ora had Rachel sit at the big conference table to review her testimony with a handful of assistants, Toni tucked herself in a corner and checked her watch. Carla would have just started processing the suspect; she could afford to stick around and make sure Rachel got to the witness stand. She'd put a couple months into ensuring just that, after all.

Paul joined her a few minutes later, suit unwrinkled and tie straight, as if nothing had happened. Maybe he would understand Hobson's secret after all; the guy was half-wizard when it came to his wardrobe. Toni, on the other hand, had already sweated through her t-shirt and was seriously considering ditching the sweater, no matter how unprofessional it would look. "You sure you're okay?" she asked him. Despite the suit, he wasn't quite focused when he looked at her, at Rachel and Ora's team, out the glass-paneled walls at the hallways filling up with reporters and onlookers. She didn't know if it was because of the accident, or because he was working things out in his head, trying to put pieces together about the Guyettes or Hobson. Or her. 

Long seconds stretched by without a response. She nudged his elbow. "Did you have any warning at all?"

"We had a green light to turn. Guy came from my left, ran a red into me." He kept staring at Rachel, or rather, at a spot on the wall just above her head. 

"Glad the department sprang for airbags?"

"I'm just glad you--" He blinked at her, as though she had come back into focus. "You came out of nowhere, too. Why did you call in the bomb squad? You listening to Hobson again?" 

Maybe she should have been glad their ongoing argument about Hobson was sparking some life, some attention, back into him, but mostly it just pissed her off that he wouldn't let it drop. "They'll find evidence that guy--who has a three-day-old bullet wound in his shoulder--intended to set off explosives." She caught Rachel watching them from the table, and lowered her voice. "He wanted to make sure you and Rachel never made it to the courthouse. Or anywhere else, for that matter."

"I'm not asking what the guy who ran into me had planned. I'm not even asking how you knew, because we both know it's Hobson." He stood a little straighter, a little closer. She was pretty sure he never meant to use his height advantage on her, but he did it anyway. "I'm asking why you believed him."

"You know what, I am not your problem--"

"Toni?" Rachel stood, hands flat on the table. "Can you back me up here?"

Toni held up a finger and turned to Paul. God knew why, but she had to get his head straight about a couple things. "Hobson isn't your problem, either. Not to bring up a sore point an hour or so after you almost died, but it wasn't so long ago you were almost suspended because you couldn't let a case go. Hobson was the one who got you the chance to prove you were right. And as far as today goes, I believed him because I didn't want to have to hand Meredith whatever was left of your badge and tell her you were never coming home." 

He pulled back, jaw still set, but when Toni sidestepped him to cross the room, he let her. 

"I don't understand," Rachel was saying. Most of Ora's assistants were taking--or pretending to take--notes. "Toni can tell you, it was the same man who tried to take my daughter."

Ora shot Toni a long-suffering look. "It doesn't matter if Dennis Guyette somehow escaped custody and apparated himself to the scene. We cannot bring up the accident, or anything that happened at that house, with this jury."

"Why not?" Rachel looked like she was walking a pretty thin edge. She was strong, she'd been strong for months now, but strength could turn brittle under too much stress. "They killed my husband--"

"We've found no evidence to support that theory," Ora said patiently. "Rachel, I want to take them down as badly as you do, but we'll have to do it the way we planned."

"Fuck plans! Were you listening when Toni told you what happened this morning? The Guyettes are trying to kill me and Toni and Paul--to kill _cops_ , for God's sake--and take away my daughter, who's eight months old and just getting her first teeth, and all I can talk about on the stand is fucking campaign fraud?" 

Something in the crack of Rachel's voice, in the way she slapped her hand on the table, reminded Toni of Addie and her noisy determination to knock over the block towers. Toni sat down in the chair next to hers. Ora was right, of course, but Rachel was still the person Toni needed to protect. 

"We've been through this," Ora said. "You found evidence of the fraud because of your expertise in accounting. That's what makes you a credible witness. If you say anything we can't back with evidence, you'll weaken our case." 

Rachel pulled her hands into her lap and looked down at them, at the ring she still wore. "You mean it makes me look hysterical. I'm not, I'm just--I'm--" She looked at Toni. "God, what am I?"

"Royally pissed off," Toni suggested, venturing a grin. " _Fucking_ pissed, even." 

It was, of course, at that moment that Captain Banks walked in the room, shooting piercing, questioning looks at her and Paul. 

"You're right, I am, I'm fucking pissed," Rachel said. "And scared. What if he walks? What'll happen to us then?"

Toni reached over and squeezed her hand. "We'll protect you, no matter what." 

"He won't walk if you stick to the testimony we've planned." Ora leaned across the table. "Your truth has more power than their threats. But you have to play by the court's rules, or Judge McCarthy will throw us all out of his courtroom, and no one will ever hear it."

"I know, but--" Rachel drew in a breath. 

"Addie needs her mom," Toni told her. "She needs you to do this."

Rachel gave her a searching look, then nodded. "Okay. Right." She stood and smoothed her skirt. "I can do this. For Addie and Mike."

Ora gave her a rare, full-watt smile. "Do it for yourself, kiddo. That's the best revenge."

Paul led the way down the hall to the courtroom. Toni brought up the rear with Banks at her side. "Sounds like you were quite the hero out there this morning." He had his poker face on, and she couldn't tell how much trouble she was in. "Bomb guys found enough C-4 to shred both cars under the Tahoe. Still looking for the detonator."

They'd reached the side entrance to Judge McCarthy's courtroom. Paul held the door for Rachel and the attorneys. "Coming?" he asked Toni. 

Toni turned to Banks. "Actually, sir, I'd like to talk to the suspect. I think I know better than anyone which questions to ask. If he can tie this to the Guyettes, we can use it, even if it's in another trial. But now is the time to pressure him."

Banks looked at Paul. "You still on Ms. Pemberton in there?" Paul gave a half-shrug, half-nod. Toni wanted to remind both of them this was _her_ case, but it was probably better to keep her mouth shut. "What about the baby?" Banks asked.

"She's safe with Hobson."

His caterpillar eyebrows drew together. "And you left her with the civilian again because--"

"Because they're in a secure location, and he knows not to leave it."

"That's not exactly what I meant. Why were you on the scene this morning?"

Donuts wouldn't cut it with Banks, any more than with Paul. "I had reason to suspect there'd be trouble."

Banks shook his head. "Brigatti, you know I can't let you hare off on your detail because of some hunch--whether it's yours or Hobson's. As much as I trust Crumb's assessment of the guy, I can't let you run your detail based on psychic instincts, or whatever mental condition the guy has."

Toni opened her mouth, but Paul beat her to it. "Today sir, I think you should be glad she did. If she hadn't been there, you'd be dealing with an even bigger mess now."

While Toni reeled from the shock of Paul's turnaround, the bailiff stuck his head out the door. "We're starting. In or out?"

Banks looked between the two of them. Gave his head a shake that meant they'd talk about it later--at length, no doubt--and grabbed the door. "In. Go talk to your suspect, Brigatti. Get me something we can use to bring down this whole organization. Every last one of them."

"Yes sir." Toni flicked a wry, grateful grin at Paul before he followed Banks into the courtroom.

Her suspect. Her case. It felt good to be doing her job--all of her job--again. She headed for the main staircase to scope out the crowd. The public entrance to the courtroom was thronged with reporters and gawkers. She was nearly clear of them when someone barked, "Brigatti!"

She spun on her heel and saw Zeke Crumb making his way toward her, Marissa in tow. A ripple of attention flowed their way, and Toni pointed to an offshoot hallway. Her satisfaction evaporated with every step. She should have been happy to see them; she'd be able to tell Hobson they were okay, that she'd spoken with them and sent them home, which she fully intended to do. But the set of Crumb's craggy face and the way Marissa stood when they came to a halt, tapping her fingers against her leg, set off warning bells.

"What are you doing here?"

"Came looking for Armstrong." Crumb let go of Marissa's elbow, jerked a thumb toward the courtroom. "Didn't expect to find you."

Toni took in their rumpled clothes, Marissa's smudged eye makeup. "Spent the night at the station, huh? You guys okay?"

"Fine." But Crumb frowned. "How did you know--"

"Is Gary with you?" Marissa broke in. "The baby?"

"They're both safe," Toni said. Again. Every time she had to convince someone else, her own assurance slipped a little. But Hobson had promised, and she trusted him.

"See, I told you," Crumb nudged Marissa. "They're supposed to be there."

They'd come from the station, so "there" meant--no. He hadn't. "Where?"

"The police station," Marissa said, sending Toni's blood pressure skyrocketing. He'd promised. 

"You saw him?"

Crumb tilted his head toward Marissa. "She did."

"You--what?"

"I heard the baby. When those officers brought us in last night, they split us up. I was in some tiny space all night answering questions from six different people. They called it an interview room, but it felt more like an--"

"--interrogation," Toni and Crumb finished together. 

Marissa nodded. "I thought Detective Porter would never let up on me about Gary and whether McGinty's was some kind of front or fence or--I don't even know. But he was called away early this morning and I was all alone for a couple of hours."

"Porter?" Toni looked at Crumb. "Doesn't he work under Benning at Northside?" With a faint, tiny click, a piece of the case took its place. Benning had been at the gala for Helen's Hope. "You said, 'Stink goes up.' Is that what you meant?"

Crumb shrugged. "I don't got much more than a hunch, but your captain has the same hunch. Seems like a lot's happened in this case that couldn't happen without someone a little higher up pulling the strings, you know?"

"Unfortunately, I do," Toni said.

"You can work out who the bad guys are later," Marissa insisted. "Something's wrong with Gary and that little girl, and you need to find them right away."

"You can't be sure--"

"Right before Detective Winslow came to release me, I heard a baby cry. It was cut off and faint, and there were men's voices rumbling under it that I couldn't make out, but I know it was Addie."

Why in the world would Hobson be in that hallway? Even if he had been stupid enough to go to the station, he would have headed for her desk, or Winslow's. "Marissa, you've had hardly any sleep--I know I start hearing things after an all-nighter. And you've only met Addie once."

"Twice," Marissa reminded her. "At the bus stop yesterday, she cried just like that, with little hiccups at the end of each yell. It was a mad cry. Toni, please, I know it was her."

Toni looked at Crumb, who shrugged. "See what it's like? He gets permutations, she gets feelings."

"What do you get?"

"Indigestion, mostly."

"Gary's there with her, isn't he?" Marissa went on, ignoring the borderline insult. Her fingers moved even faster, almost like she was playing piano against her leg. "I knew we should have looked for them."

"He'd better be there, if that really was Addie." But it wasn't. It couldn't be. Though it would be just like Hobson to do something so totally inexplicable. "You didn't hear Hobson?"

"The men's voices were too low to make out. And then the crying cut off, like somebody shut a door. When Detective Winslow came to get me a few minutes later I asked him about it. He checked all the other interrogation rooms, he said, but there wasn't any baby. I know it sounds impossible, but it felt all wrong, and Addie sounded so unhappy."

"It's probably nothing, but I thought we'd better let Armstrong know," Crumb said. "Or Banks, if he's here. Took off like a shot about an hour ago. Something about an accident." 

"It wasn't an accident, it was a murder attempt." She shouldn't have let it slip; Marissa looked utterly horrified. "Everyone's okay," she added quickly. "I was headed for the station to deal with it. I'll figure out what's going on." If Addie was there, Hobson was with her. She needed eyes on them right away. "Do either of you have a phone?"

"They hauled me down there without my bag," Marissa said. "Or my cane or my dog. I made one phone call to that coin dealer yesterday, and somebody used it as an excuse to keep us all night in those smelly rooms--"

"Actually, I was in Banks's office," Crumb said. "I tried to tell them to let you out."

"It doesn't matter," Marissa said. "Whatever their reasons, it meant I was there to hear Addie, so Toni would know, and could do something about it."

Paul had a phone. "I'm going to call Winslow and tell him to search for them until I can get down there and check it out. You guys head home, get some coffee or something, and I'll call with updates." She took a step toward the courtroom, then turned back. Crumb had a hand on Marissa's shoulder, as though he was trying to keep her from taking off. "They're okay," she said, trying to convince herself as well as them. "I'll find them."

~*~*~*~


	12. Chapter 12

When the door opened again, Gary was retying his shoe, trying to read the latest version of the headlines around Addie. She'd knocked the paper off the table and now sat on his lap sucking on her toes.

"...not a problem. They'll call her out on some phony lead in a few minutes and we'll take him with us," Porter said. He walked right up to the table and crowded into Gary's space, a trick Chuck used to use when he wanted to get a height advantage over Gary. Delano stood holding the door open.

"Take me where?" Gary asked.

"Not you." Porter reached out a finger and tried to tickle Addie under the chin, but she squirmed away from him, right to the edge of Gary's knees. "What's with the kid?" He squatted close, sticking his nose in Addie's face. "Better get used to me, _chérie_. We're going to be good friends." 

"Leave her alone." Gary pulled Addie in close. She stuck one fist in his shirt pocket and the other in her mouth and fixed Porter with a glower. He laughed and moved over to the file cabinet.

"I still don't like this," Delano said. "Get in here. Don't let anyone see you." The door opened wider.

Gary jumped to his feet, backing into the corner against the shelves because it was the only place to go. The bulk that filled the doorway belonged to the guy who'd nearly killed Toni back in Schaumburg. A giant bruise discolored his arm from his wrist to somewhere under the sleeve of his badly-stretched t-shirt. Addie took one look at him and buried her face in Gary's shoulder.

A lot of pieces clicked into place at once, and the picture they made sent a wash of cold down Gary's back. "You brought him here to kill her."

A corner of Delano's mouth worked, but Porter answered. "Don't be ridiculous. We'd never hurt a child."

Gary'd meant Toni, and the Hulk seemed to know it. He took a step toward Gary. "We'll take care of that bitch cop once we get rid of you."

"Shut up, Braud." Delano's bark ended in a squeak. A tiny part of Gary's brain, what was left of the sense-making part, registered this as a bad sign. If they were using names in front of him, they didn't plan on him being able to tell anyone what they were about to do.

Porter, who was watching Gary closely, broke out a cold grin. He nudged Gary with his elbow. "Doesn't matter anymore. He knows what's what." 

The only thing Gary knew was he had to stop them somehow. "Brigatti's your team leader," he said to Delano. "She's a cop, like you."

"She's a pain in the ass," Braud growled. 

"You can't let them kill her!" 

Delano turned away, and Gary fought to hold onto a coherent thought, tried to make some kind of a plan. Whatever they were about to do to him, they would stick around to kill Toni if he didn't give them a reason to think they needed to leave before she got there. All of them.

"Enough." Porter backed Gary into the shelves. "Hand her over." Addie let out a tiny whimper as Gary tightened his arms around her.

"You can't do this. This is a police station."

"And we're the police. Come on, we won't hurt her. She's precious cargo." He grabbed the quilt off the table and pushed in on Gary again, rubbing a corner of the quilt on Addie's cheek. "We'll wrap her up in her blankie all nice and safe and go for a ride, and when we have what we want, she can see her mommy again. Isn't that what you want, you little cutie?"

Addie lifted her head to look at him, then at Gary. He cupped his hand around her curls. "This won't stop the trial. Her mom's already testifying--"

"In _this_ trial. Maybe." Porter smirked and checked his watch. "Maybe not. But it doesn't matter; this is about the long game." 

Time. He needed time. He looked over Porter's shoulder at the door, where Braud stood, arms crossed. Over by the table, Delano looked lost. "You want the long game?" Gary asked. "Fine, but I gotta tell you, Rachel doesn't have the information your bosses want."

"I'm betting she'll find it if we give her a reason. We're wasting time. Give me the kid, if you don't want her to get hurt."

Telling himself he was buying time--for Toni to show up, for someone, anyone, to wonder what the hell was going on down at this end of the hall--Gary took a step toward Porter. "You promise she'll be okay?" He let his shoulders drop as if he was giving in, gave them a second to let down their guard--then squeezed Addie tight and made a break for the door like a fullback carrying the ball through the defensive front line. 

He shouldered Porter toward the table. Porter's heel caught on a diaper and he slid backward into Delano. But Braud shoved Gary--and Addie--into the file cabinets. The back of Gary's head banged into a handle with a teeth-rattling crash. White flashes exploded behind his eyes and Addie shrieked right in his ear. He tried to get back up, but he couldn't see straight, couldn't see the fist that connected with the side of his face, sending him to the floor. He tried to curl himself around Addie, but Braud kicked him in the lower back, then grabbed his arm, wrenching and twisting it away from her. Her screams only got louder as Braud pulled her away from Gary.

Every movement hurt, but he had to get to her. He forced his eyes open. The paper, spread on the floor under the table, danced into sight, and he caught part of the front page headline: _...Dead, Child Missing_. What had he done to change it? He reached for the paper, but the filthy heel of a tennis shoe drove into his hand. He rolled away from the foot, pulled himself up on the shelves, trying to see, to find a way to Addie.

Braud had her tucked under one arm. Her arms and legs flailed as she reached for Gary and cried, "Dadada," but Braud's other arm was steady as he pointed a gun, a black Glock. Things got swimmy, but he knew that gun. He'd had it pointed at him more than once. By Toni Brigatti. 

Buy time. Keep them talking. He couldn't help Addie if Braud shot him. "Why do you keep using her gun?" He held onto the shelves to keep his knees from buckling under him and told Delano, "Banks knows it isn't her."

Delano blanched, but Porter said, "She'll know it's the gun that killed you, if she gets time to figure it out. Works for me."

"You son of a--"

"Shut up." Braud shoved the gun into Gary's chest; Gary's hands went up automatically. Addie's cries ripped through him, almost as bad as a bullet would have been. "I'm tired of fucking around."

"Not here." Delano, to Gary's shock, knocked Braud's hand down. "We can't leave evidence in this building. God, would you make her stop?"

"I can take her," Gary started, but Braud flipped Addie over--nearly knocking her in the head with the gun--and put his meaty hand over her mouth--over all of her face except her impossibly huge, terrified eyes--and tucked her against his side. 

"Problem one solved." Braud lowered the gun at Gary. "Next."

"You're hurting her!" Gary kept his hands up, but turned to Delano and Porter. "She'll suffocate in a few seconds like that. Look, I know you'll kill me either way. But I also know you don't want to kill a baby, or--or leave a room full of evidence in a police station." When they stared at him--Delano on the verge of a full freak-out, but Porter looking smugly interested--Gary rushed on, "We all know she can't tell you where to find the information her dad took--stole--from the Guyettes. Neither can her mom. But I can, I can tell you exactly where it is." He looked back at Addie. She'd stopped waving her arms and legs and was wriggling weakly in Braud's grip. "She can't breathe, for God's sake--I swear, I'll go with you, I won't fight you, I'll get you whatever it is you want, just let me take care of her."

"He's bluffing," Braud said.

"I'm not, not about her life. What'll Dennis Guyette do to you if you kill her?"

"Dennis isn't the one you need to worry about," Porter said.

"Maybe we should listen to him," Delano said. "She doesn't look good."

"Because she can't _breathe_." She was hardly moving at all now, and her eyelids were drooping. 

"Jesus," Porter spat. "Fine, let him deal with it." He waved a hand between Braud and Gary, and Braud, finally, thrust Addie at him. 

Gary took her, hands under her arms, and held her out a little to watch her take one breath, then two. She screwed up her face like she was going to yell at him for letting her go, but he drew her in close. "Don't cry, it's okay, I got you," Gary whispered into her hair while she gasped and sucked down air. "Please, please don't cry." These guys would separate them again if he couldn't calm her down. She bit his shoulder right through his shirt, a punishment he more than deserved. But she didn't cry. "See? She's okay with me. I can keep her quiet in the hallway--and wherever you're taking her."

"She won't like this," Porter muttered.

"No, she will, she likes me. She's already stopped crying."

Porter opened his mouth, snapped it closed, shook his head. He huddled by the door with Delano and Braud. Gary knew he should be paying attention, putting more pieces together, but he could only really focus on Addie's short, hiccupping breaths. He lifted her up to get a good look at her; she grabbed his cheek with one hand and stuck out her lower lip. "Sorry, bug. I'll fix this somehow." 

Braud's voice, a little too eager, caught Gary's attention. "So, what, you want me to stay here and take care of Brigatti?"

"Not now," Porter said. "Someone's probably already heard us or seen you. Let's get going." He tossed Gary the quilt. "You keep her quiet, or we shoot you and run with her."

As soon as Gary had the quilt over Addie, Braud grabbed his upper arm with one hand and shoved a gun into his lower back, right where he'd slammed his foot a couple minutes ago. Addie squeaked when Gary jumped. 

"Sorry, I'm so sorry. Shhh." Gary winced as Braud jabbed the gun harder into his back. "I won't let them hurt you."

"Promises, promises," Braud snarled in his ear--the same voice that had crawled around in his brain a couple days ago. Too close to Addie this time, but at least he was nowhere near Toni. Delano waved them into the hallway. Gary tried to get one last look at the paper as Braud shoved him forward, but the angle was all wrong.

The paper didn't matter. The way things were going, he probably wouldn't live to see the next edition. But Brigatti--Toni--would know he'd gone down keeping his promise.

~*~*~*~

Toni flashed her badge and pushed her way into the courtroom, just in time to see Rachel sworn in. She took a deep breath and scanned the prosecution's side for the shine of Paul's bald head. She didn't want to attract attention, especially not Rachel's attention, so she slipped up the side aisle, weaving her way through suits and recorders and probably a secret camera or two. She had protected Rachel all this time to get her to exactly this point, but seeing her up in front of all these people, an exposed target, unnerved her, especially if something hinky was going down at the station. If it really was Addie Marissa had heard, if Hobson really had gone down there, the Guyettes were behind it. And it was up to her to stop it.

She pasted a tiny, calm smile on her face so Rachel wouldn't freak out if she did see her. Low-level murmurs lapped at her heels as more people came in and tried to find places to sit.

Ora asked Rachel to describe her relationship with Dennis Guyette as Toni reached the row where Paul and Banks sat, right in the middle. 

"I was an intern in his office at the state legislature in Springfield my last semester of college," Rachel said. "When I graduated, he hired me to do bookkeeping for his senate campaign."

Toni sidled past a pair of Ora's assistants to squeeze in next to Paul, but before she could say anything the whispers crested into a wave and crashed in the middle of the center aisle. A knot of people had gathered, arguing over seats. Testimony halted as the bailiff hurried over to deal with it.

"What is it?" Paul asked.

"I need your phone. I have to call Winslow."

"What is going on?" Judge McCarthy hollered, pointing his gavel at the unruly crowd. "Bailiff, clear the aisle. I want written apologies from every single one of you." 

The bailiff pushed them to the door while Paul said, "You can't use a phone in here." 

"I know that," Toni whispered back, nodding at Banks, who'd finally noticed her. "I want to take it with me."

Up front, Judge McCarthy turned to Rachel. "My apologies. This trial has attracted a little too much attention. Let's continue."

But Rachel stared, transfixed, at the spot where the crowd had formed. 

"I'm not giving you the phone unless you tell me--what?" Paul followed Toni's gaze to Rachel.

Toni didn't know what had happened. All the color had drained from Rachel's face, except for her eyes, round with horror. "You were explaining how you came to work for Mr. Guyette's campaign," Ora said. A note of confusion crept into her voice as she, too, realized something was wrong. "Can you tell us what your duties were?"

"No." Rachel's whisper stilled the courtroom.

Toni stood and craned her neck to see what Rachel was looking at. An echoing roar filled her ears, blocked out the confused questions and murmurs around her. She stumbled over Paul, over Banks, and picked up the thing in the aisle, the thing that shouldn't have been there, shouldn't have been anywhere but the condo. With Addie. With Hobson. 

Paul slid into the aisle next to her. "What's that?" 

"Fred," Toni whispered, turning the stuffed platypus to face him. It could have been left there by any one of the people being herded out--or tossed there by anyone sitting near the aisle. There was something different about Fred's expression, something accusing. But it was still, unmistakably, Fred.

Toni looked back to Rachel, who mouthed, "Addie."

"Hey." Paul shook her by the elbow. He wasn't even bothering to whisper anymore. "Toni, what's going on? Where'd that thing come from?"

"It could be anyone." Toni's gaze swept the courtroom. There were too damn many people. The lawyers on the defense's side of the room, even Dennis Guyette himself, looked as perplexed as Ora, who'd approached the witness box to whisper questions at Rachel. Rachel clapped her hands over her mouth as if she were holding in a scream. Any of the hundreds of people in this room could have a phone. One push of a button, one ring on the other end of the line, and Addie could be--

Rachel knew it as well as Toni did. She pushed herself to her feet, despite Ora urging her to sit back down.

Judge McCarthy banged his gavel. "Detectives, I asked for the aisle to be cleared."

"Call a recess." Toni strode up to Ora, who shook her head in bafflement. "You have to call a recess."

"Ms. Pemberton, we need you to sit down and answer the questions," McCarthy said. 

"I can't." Rachel gripped the edge of the witness stand; her eyes bore into Toni, into Fred.

Judge McCarthy sighed. "Counselors, approach the bench. You stay back," he added to Toni, who'd started toward Rachel. A hand--Paul's--clamped around Toni's arm and pulled her over to the prosecution's table. 

"For God's sake, Toni, what's going on? Is that Addie's?" 

Toni nodded numbly. Up at the bench, the attorneys were having an intensely quiet conference with McCarthy. She took a deep breath and told Paul, "I think the Guyettes have her."

"But what about--"

"Don't say it." Toni squeezed Fred tight in one hand and tried to form a coherent thought over the chorus of no, no, _no_ in her head.

They had Addie. Which meant Hobson--

He'd promised. He'd gone to the station--what the hell had he seen in that paper? But he'd had Addie with him, and then--her brain skidded back two days, to the look he'd flashed her in the rearview mirror as they fled the hotel.

_You'd damn well better believe there's only one way they would have taken Addie away from me._

She'd gotten him killed. She'd made him promise, and she'd gotten him killed.

Somewhere on another planet, Ora led Rachel off the witness stand while the judge snapped out an apology to the jury. He pointed his gavel at Toni. "I want you in chambers."

No. She had to find Addie. "Sir, I can't. I have to go--" She broke off. She couldn't give out their location in open court.

Before she could come up with anything else, Ora was in her face, a thundercloud of fury. "You are coming with us. I will not lose this case because of a stuffed wallaby."

"Platypus," Toni said, but she followed the rest of the prosecution's group out the side door and down the maze of hallways to McCarthy's chambers. The judge had a separate entrance through his private offices, and the defense wasn't there yet, but still, the public chamber wasn't big enough for all of them--especially not for Rachel, who elbowed the bailiff away to get to Toni. 

"You said she was safe!" She grabbed Fred out of Toni's hands and backed Toni into a case of law books. Paul took a step toward them, but Toni caught his eye and shook her head. "Where is she, Toni? Where's my little girl?"

Toni wasn't sure she could walk Rachel back from the edge this time. She was too close to it herself, and she, too, wanted to grab onto someone and yell. But that someone was MIA--probably for good--and doing this job was more important than giving in to what she felt. "I think she's at the police station. So she's--"

"Don't you tell me she's safe! How did Fred get here?"

She could feel Paul, Banks, and Ora watching, waiting for answers she didn't have, that she couldn't have unless she could get to the station. "Rachel, please, if I knew that--" Both doors into the chamber opened, and the defense and judge entered. The bailiff positioned himself in front of the public exit, arms akimbo. "You have to get it together or they'll never let me go," Toni told Rachel quietly. "And I can't find her if I'm trapped here. This is exactly what they want, and you know it."

Rachel drew in air--there was something heartbreakingly like Addie's pre-cry breaths in the sound--and let it out with a nod, stepping back. "So does he, the slimy asshole." She nodded toward the defense attorney, a very slick, very rich guy named Carville Davis who'd been around Chicago for years, quietly making millions by getting charges dropped against people like the Guyettes. 

"Ms. Brook," Judge McCarthy asked, "is your witness under control? If not, I will halt these proceedings for the day, possibly for good."

"I'm not the one you need to control." Rachel's voice was steadier, but loaded with fury. "We aren't even trying this guy for his worst crime, and now he--he has--" She looked down at Fred, eyes brimming. 

"He doesn't." Toni didn't care who was watching, or what they made of it. As long as they kept this away from the jury, Ora's case wouldn't be harmed. She waited until Rachel looked up at her. "If he does, it won't be for long. I will find her. You'll hold her soon--today--I will make sure of it. I'll do my job, if you do yours."

That had always been the party line. Tell the witnesses whatever it took to get their testimony. Most of the time, she'd had no compunction about lies and false promises. Hell, most of the time, she'd managed to make the promises that started out false come true, even for the scummiest witnesses who didn't deserve it. But this was Rachel. Addie's mom. Toni wouldn't have been able to say it to her if she didn't believe Hobson had done all he could to back that promise up, and that he'd left Toni a way to make it right. "I'll find her. I swear." 

Rachel swallowed hard, pushed back God knew what fears and doubts, nodded once, quick and firm. "Go do it. Because I am taking these bastards down." She whirled on the judge. "Ora doesn't want me to say this to the jury. So I won't. I have plenty of other things they'll hear. But you should know, your honor, that the Guyettes have my daughter. And the accident that delayed the trial this morning? Wasn't an accident."

"Your honor, you can't let her--" Davis began, but McCarthy cut him off with an imperious wave. 

"I can only concern myself with this trial," he told Rachel. "There can't be any outside influences on your testimony. If what you're saying is true, I'll have to call a mistrial and we'll start this whole merry-go-round over again."

"I think that's a good plan," Davis said.

Rachel's fingers dug into Toni's arm. "They're trying to influence me to _not_ testify. But I--" She looked down at Fred, over at Toni. "I'm ready to do it. About this case only, I swear. But you have to let Detective Brigatti go."

"Let her go? I'm about to hold her in contempt!"

Banks cleared his throat. "Sir, every moment you keep my people here is another moment they're wasting your time, another moment this woman's daughter might be in jeopardy. Detective Brigatti won't set foot in your courtroom again if you release her."

McCarthy gauged Toni with an inscrutable gaze. He had to be a hell of a poker player. Finally, he waved her to the door. "Go."

The bailiff stepped aside. "Don't make a liar out of me," Banks whispered as Toni passed him. 

She nodded. "Keep Rachel safe."

Who was keeping Addie safe? Maybe no one, now, and the thought of her in the wrong hands pushed Toni forward. She broke into a run down a side hall, relieved when she didn't see Marissa and Crumb. She couldn't take another round of questions, let alone confess what she feared was more likely to be true every moment.

She barreled down the steps, pulling the keys to the chase car out of her pocket. She was halfway down the last flight of stairs when Paul called from the floor above. "Toni, wait!"

"I can't." 

She banged through the exit door, but he caught up with her on the sidewalk. "I want to help."

"I told you, help Rachel." She went around to the driver's side of the car and unlocked the door, hand shaking so badly the key scratched the paint.

"She has plenty of protection from everything except losing her kid."

Toni couldn't argue with that. They both got in the car. "No third degree this time," she warned. 

He held up a hand. "I'm not--look, last time I didn't believe you about something big like this, it nearly got us both killed. Hobson, too. I want to make sure none of us comes that close again."

She didn't have time for this, for the stab at her heart that made it impossible to slot the key into the ignition. "What if he's already dead?"

Paul snorted. "That guy is harder to kill than a cockroach." But he wasn't. Newspaper or not, he was made of flesh and bone. "Let's go find that little girl."

Toni couldn't look at him. The weight of one more person putting his trust in her would topple her like a tower of plastic boxes. She sent up a prayer to whatever saints watched over curly haired babies and magic newspapers and the key finally slipped into the ignition. "Let's find them both."

~*~*~*~

While Delano stayed behind, stuffing diapers into the backpack, Braud and Porter hustled Gary across the hall and down a narrow, enclosed staircase. He focused on not tripping over his own feet; on keeping the blanket over Addie so she wouldn't have to look at the goons; on her heart fluttering against his chest and what he could do to make sure it kept beating. Which was more than he'd be able to do for himself. If these guys didn't kill him, Toni would. If these guys didn't kill her. "Not you, though," he whispered into the top of Addie's head. "You'll be okay."

Braud pressed the gun deeper into the small of Gary's back, and Gary nearly lost his footing. "Not a damn word."

The stairway ended at an emergency exit. Porter pushed past them, shouldering Gary into Braud, and punched a few buttons on a keypad to open the door. They all spilled out into an alley, where one of the ubiquitous unmarked sedans the detectives drove was parked. Gary craned his neck to see daylight at either end of the alley, wished for Winslow coming out of Taco Time's back door. The only help he got was from Braud, who shoved him toward the sedan so hard that only Gary's hand cupped around Addie's head kept her from banging into the door frame. She whimpered as he folded himself into the backseat. Braud followed him, and Porter got in the passenger side of the front seat. A few seconds later Delano slid into the driver's seat, and, as if Gary needed a reminder he was hopelessly outnumbered, a fourth man squeezed into the backseat from the other side. Gary couldn't be one hundred percent sure--he hadn't gotten a good look at the guy's face the first time--but the size matched up with the man who'd been at the safe house when it exploded. 

Everyone who'd tried to kill Toni Brigatti in one car. She had to be safe now--though Gary knew exactly what she'd say about them being in the same car as Addie. At least if they had to stop quickly, Addie wouldn't go anywhere but right into his knees, which crunched up to the same level as his chin.

"What the hell is he doing here?" the new guy asked.

Trying not to choke on the b.o., Gary thought. He didn't dare say it.

"You're the one who fucked up the crash and got yourself brought in," Delano muttered. "Just like you fucked up at the house. Be glad I sprang your ass before Brigatti got to you."

"She's the one who ought to be glad. She's got payback coming for that shot." He jabbed an elbow into Gary. "So does he."

"Can it, Turcotte." Porter gave Delano's arm a backhand slap. "Get going before someone sees us." The car revved to life. 

Turcotte's shrug forced Gary up against Braud. "Long as I get to shoot him."

"No way. He pushed me off the balcony," Braud said.

"You had your fat ass to cushion you." Turcotte yanked the blanket off Addie's head. She popped up, blinking away sweat. He poked a finger into her side. "Good to see you again, dolly."

Addie scrunched up her face. "Ah-ha-ah--"

Porter threw a death glare over his shoulder as they emerged from the alley into the bright sunshine. "I thought you said you could keep her quiet."

"Tell them to stop touching her," Gary muttered. He still wasn't sure if he was allowed to speak. 

"I like her." Turcotte patted the top of Addie's head, and she flinched. "Give me a chance. I'm damn good with kids."

And bombs and kidnapping and attempted murder. Pissed as Gary was, he kept his mouth shut. He drew Addie closer and let her hit his face a couple of times before she rested her cheek on his shoulder. He could only hope she'd sleep through whatever came next. 

"She's stressed out because you are," Turcotte said genially, as if they were at a Little League game and not in a carful of mob flunkies. "Little kids can pick up on those things. You really ought to relax. It's better for her."

"Yeah." Braud jabbed his gun so deep into Gary's ribs he thought it might come out the other side. "Relax."

Relax. Right. They wouldn't shoot him in the car. Sure, they were going to dump him in the river, and that meant they could actually kill him anywhere. But he was pretty sure they didn't want to leave a cop car full of evidence. And there were too many places a bullet could go on its way out of him, like into one of them. Into Addie. 

They weren't at the station lying in wait for Toni, he reminded himself. Not a one of them. He closed his eyes and pictured her holding Addie like she had after Braud tracked them down at the hotel, promising her she was safe. It was a good picture, and if it was the last thing he did, the last thing he ever saw, he would make it happen again.

He opened his eyes again when Addie fussed against his shoulder. She pulled her head back, brown eyes huge. What did she think was going on? Why did she trust him? And what made him think she'd survive once these guys took him out? Turcotte wiggled a pair of fat fingers in her face, but she didn't grab them, didn't try to gnaw them the way she did with everyone else. How the hell did she know?

"What's her problem?" Turcotte asked. Braud snorted. 

"She needs--" Fred. Her mom. Toni Brigatti calling her "baby bug" and feeding her rice and singing duck songs while she gave her a bath. "I think she's hungry." Addie grabbed a handful of Gary's hair and tugged.

"We'll stop at the next drive-through joint that serves baby food," Porter snapped. 

A couple blocks later, Delano turned the car into a half-circle drive that fronted a steel and blue-glass building. Gary had a glimpse of a stylized yellow butterfly, the same logo he'd seen in the photo from the charity gala. It was framed by tall, colorful sculptures in the front windows. He flashed back to the photo next to Toni's obituary, the woman who'd posed with the CPD department heads. All those "she"s they'd dropped--they hadn't meant Addie. " _Helen_ Guyette is behind all this?"

Porter looked back at him. "Finally figured it out. Think CPD'll make you an honorary detective?"

"Posthumously, maybe," Braud growled. 

Nobody was going to give him any awards, not when he'd figured it out this late in the game. Not when his bumbling into the answer had put Addie at risk. The car went down a delivery ramp, which took them under the building and out to a dilapidated back lot. A few small trucks and a cream colored Lexus were parked next to a loading dock. Delano stopped next to the Lexus and they all got out, Braud waving Gary out his side with the gun.

Gary could smell the river, though he couldn't see it: bilge and diesel and fish in grey-green water, where he'd end up at some point today if things didn't turn around fast. His knees took a couple seconds to unkink. He stumbled when Turcotte took his elbow and dragged him toward the loading dock, clumsy as Chuck used to be trying to guide Marissa somewhere she really didn't want to go. 

"Cover her up." Delano yanked the end of the blanket over Addie's head.

"Yeah, no one who sees us will know there's a baby now," Gary growled. 

Delano whirled on him and shoved his gun into Gary's stomach through the blanket, right between Addie's legs. "You have no idea how thin the ice is under your feet, Hobson."

"I think I do, with your gun in front and his behind."

"Shut the fuck up." Just under his eye, Delano's cheek twitched. "This is what you get for sticking your neck out to help Brigatti."

The only thing Gary had to lose was Addie, and he was pretty sure they wouldn't shoot him while he was holding her, so he let himself say it. "Scared she's coming after you?" 

Delano's finger tapped against the trigger; Gary couldn't tell if he was doing it on purpose or shaking. He swallowed, then snapped, "I can't wait to see the look on her face when she finds whatever's left of you."

"Hey, genius." Porter shoved Delano away. "You want the baby covered up, but you're doing this out here? Get yourself together. He still hasn't told us where the info is."

"Don't worry," Braud said. Though Delano's gun wasn't in Gary's gut anymore, Braud's was still jammed right up against a vertebrae. "We've got the kid. He'll tell us whatever we need to know."

It took Braud pushing him forward, took Turcotte yanking on his arm, to get Gary moving again, up the loading dock, through the wide doors and into a cavern of a warehouse. Metal shelving and wooden crates, some of them twice Gary's height, created a dark labyrinth that even Porter had trouble navigating. 

They finally reached a rattling metal staircase that led up to a catwalk. As they clanged along it, toward a door in the cement wall that Gary assumed separated the warehouse from the gallery he'd seen out front, Addie breathed quick and hot against his neck. He tried to reassure her, with the pressure of his hand, that she was okay, that he wasn't letting her go. Her little fingers scrabbled at the collar of his shirt.

The door opened to another world: a hallway lined with thick carpet, artwork on the walls, soft lighting. They passed three unmarked wooden doors before Porter stopped them. "This one."

Braud pushed Gary into a nondescript office with a file cabinet, a couple of chairs, a desk with a computer, and a view of the river and the North Side, complete with a curve of the Brown Line. Braud pushed Gary toward a chair, while Porter motioned Turcotte toward the hall. "Tell her we're here, then take point in case anyone else shows up."

Delano tossed the backpack on the desk. "Hey," Gary asked, knowing Addie was well past due for a diaper change, "Can I--"

"No. Sit," Braud ordered. 

He dropped into the chair, took the blanket off Addie, and let it fall to the floor. She sighed against him, limp except for the fists that clung to his shirt. "Now what?"

"Wait," Porter leaned back against a bookcase and crossed his arms. "Count the minutes you have left."

Gary figured the "her" Turcotte had gone to fetch was Helen Guyette. The sculptures, the logo he'd spotted at the front entrance--this was probably the same place they'd held that cancer benefit a few days before. Could Phillip Guyette's daughter-in-law really be his second in command? Whatever she was, she made Delano nervous. He paced a lopsided oval around the office. Even Porter fidgeted, tapping his fingers against the barrel of his gun while he stood watching Gary with his arms crossed. 

He could hear Crumb's voice in his head, bits of advice and stories from the times they'd tended bar together. He'd never been sure if Crumb was shooting the bull or deliberately seeding his knowledge and experience because he figured Gary might need it one day. "The thing in a hostage situation is, you gotta keep 'em talking," he'd said once in the midst of telling Gary how he'd resolved a bank standoff back in the eighties. "Get them to tell you what they want, find a way to make them think you're the one who can give it to them. Make them think they're in control. Act scared, but don't be stupid."

Gary was pretty sure none of these guys was in charge, and talking wouldn't help unless he could talk to the person who was. And he didn't have to act scared. It was real, and he was pretty sure it showed on his face. 

Addie shoved a hand into his shirt pocket and snuggled in with barely audible whimpers, ghosts of the loud objections she usually raised when she realized sleep was about to catch up with her. Despite the gun muzzle pressed into the back of his skull, Gary tried to soothe her by rubbing his thumb across her back like a windshield wiper; tried to make her feel safe. For now.

The door opened, and Porter and Delano snapped to attention. Maybe Braud did, too; Gary didn't feel any change in the pressure of the gun. The woman who came in and rounded the desk so she stood framed by the million dollar view didn't look like a mob boss, but she was, in fact, the same well-dressed woman who'd appeared in the photo with all the police bigwigs. Today she wore a pale green suit and carried a big, gold-trimmed purse. Her blonde hair was swept into a neat twist with a diamond barrette that probably cost what McGinty's laid out in a month's payroll. She looked from Gary to Porter to Delano with piercing blue eyes that belied the smooth, calm mask of the face that framed them. 

"I take it you failed again?"

Delano looked down at his shoes, but Porter shrugged. "Interference." He nodded toward Gary. "Again. But we got the kid, and he says he can give us the information Mike Pemberton stole."

"Perhaps he can. He has the man's child." She gave Gary a look shot through with bitter amusement. "Do you know who I am?"

Gary didn't want to dance to her tune. "You're desperate," he said. "You've stooped to kidnapping a baby, you tried to kill her mother and a couple police detectives, and I assume you'll do the same to me."

She blinked, but her mask didn't shift. Braud scraped the muzzle of his gun against Gary's ear. "Be happy to take care of that last one for you."

"I suppose we must." Helen pulled two file folders out of her purse, one about the size of the police personnel files he'd seen the day before, the other several inches thick. She made a show of flipping through the fat one, stopping toward the end. "He's a little too close to Detective Brigatti for comfort." She dropped the file on the desk and spread her fingers--white and pink-tipped, nails filed to ten identical, elongated ovals--over it. One nail tapped on the tab that had Gary's name written on it in Crumb's familiar hand. No wonder Toni hadn't been able to find his file. "However, I appreciate good art, and there's a certain artfulness to the way you've interfered with everything I've tried to do. It seems to be a habit with you. No wonder Detective Brigatti finds you so fascinating. Care to tell me why you've set your sights on my operation?"

As if the reason wasn't right there in front of her, drooling on the neck of Gary's t-shirt. "I'm trying to keep a baby safe."

"And causing so much trouble in the process. But despite your activities over the past few days, the trial against my son is in recess." A spark of triumph lit her eyes. "Some kind of disturbance over a stuffed animal." 

Gary's thumb slowed and stilled on Addie's back. If she was right, if Fred was at the courthouse, that meant someone there--maybe even Toni--knew they were in trouble. He had to buy time-- _make_ time--for her to find them. Here, where nobody would know to look. "So you--you got what you want," he stammered. He'd say whatever came to mind, as long as she'd keep talking. "That's good, right?"

"Not everything. Not yet. Rachel Pemberton's silence is the first item in a long list of things I need to secure my family's future."

"That's all we are? Two more items on your list?"

Her smile went feral. "The problem with that way of thinking, Mr. Hobson, is there is no 'we,' not anymore." When she rounded the desk, Porter and Delano stepped out of her way. "Detective Brigatti is at the courthouse, you are in that chair, and this little girl--" She put her hand over Gary's on Addie's back. "--is coming with me."

She was close enough he could smell her perfume, spice and flowers. He tried to pull away from her, but there was nowhere to go. "You don't need her." As if she knew what was going on, Addie dug the fingers of one hand into his cheek and scooted up his chest like she was climbing a tree. 

Helen pulled back. "I need the information her father stole from us."

"He sure as hell didn't give it to a baby!"

"You want me to believe he gave it to you? You never even met him, did you?"

Once--barely--but she didn't need to know that. "No, I found it. Kind of stumbled on it."

"I'm sure you did. Hand it over, and we can talk." Gary watched her, chewing on his lip. The minute he gave her the chip, he'd seal his own fate, and maybe Addie's. When he didn't answer, she took another step back, nodding at the detectives. "They may not be willing to risk hurting her to get to you, but I remember holding my Dennis like that. I promised him I would do anything to protect him. Anything." 

"I know you would," Gary said, though he didn't understand why keeping her son safe had to mean hurting Addie. _Make them think they're in control_. "I'll give you the information, but I need your promise--your personal guarantee--she'll be safe."

"I assure you," Helen said, "from here on out, she'll be safer with me than she would with you."

That wasn't much of a guarantee. "How do I know that?"

"You don't. Just like the last man who tried to strike a deal with me didn't."

It wasn't hard to guess who she meant. "Mike Pemberton." 

"He was a smart man. Smart enough to understand what he found on my son's computers and keep some of it to himself, but he was also desperate to keep his family, such as it was, safe."

Gary raced to keep up with what she was telling him, to put the pieces together like he knew Toni would. Mike must have tried to bargain with the information that implicated Helen. "He knew it was you who came after them the first time. You were the reason they went into witness protection." Mike had probably known he was putting himself in the line of fire by telling her he had that information. And now Gary had delivered his little girl right into the woman's clutches. 

_Keep surprising her_ , Crumb whispered from the recesses of his brain. _Keep her off track. Make a connection with her if you can_. "He tried to make a deal with you--the information for his family's safety. It's what I would have done." Actually, he would have gone to Toni, or Armstrong, or Crumb--anyone who would have been able to help him. But Mike Pemberton hadn't known anyone like Toni. He'd been desperate. "I would have done whatever I had to, to protect my kid's future. Just like you." 

Helen's mask cracked, just a little; Gary could see shadows of the lines age had begun to etch around her eyes and mouth. "My son will have the future I never thought I could. Not as a girl, when my family was so poor we lived in government housing, and not as a woman, when even my husband's wealth couldn't give me any real power. No do-gooding accountant is going to take that away from us. Mike knew very early on how far I'd go for Dennis, even though Rachel never did."

Why hadn't Mike told Rachel? Maybe he thought he knew better than she did what the information meant; maybe he thought he could protect her better than the law enforcement agencies. Whatever he'd thought, he'd thought wrong. "If he had what you wanted, why did you kill him?"

"He...hesitated to turn all he'd found over to me. And he couldn't complete the most important part of the deal--he couldn't convince his wife to withdraw her testimony. It left us in a precarious position. I have the same priorities he did; I'm just more effective in accomplishing them. Now, Mr. Hobson, if protecting Addison's future is your priority, give me that information."

Gary took a deep breath--and a cell phone's muffled ring stopped him before he could start. Helen held out a hand, and Porter dug through her purse, pulled out her phone, and gave it to her. "Yes? I see." She clicked it shut. "The trial is resuming." Her faint smile didn't fade, but it hardened, the lines around her mouth deepening. 

That meant--it had to mean--somebody knew where they were. He wanted it to mean Toni was alive and on her way. But he wasn't sure she would make it to him in time.

"You're not a stupid man, Mr. Hobson. So I won't tell you Addison won't be hurt, when we both know that's a promise you haven't been able to keep yourself. My father-in-law taught me that--not to make promises you can't keep. It only weakens your position. But as long as no one forces my hand, she'll be safe." 

Gary looked down at Addie, still wide-eyed, still looking to him for what she needed. "That's what this is about, isn't it? Not your kid, not your family--your position."

"Does it matter? Family _is_ position, especially in our circle. My husband may not understand that, but I do, and so does my son. We were poised for great things before Rachel Pemberton opened her mouth. She deserves what's happened to her family. It's no less than what she's tried to do to mine."

"Addie's a baby," Gary said. "She didn't do anything to hurt you."

"Then don't give me a reason to do anything to her." Helen put her hand on Addie's back again. "I'm sure you understand it's as easy to make two bodies disappear as one," she added softly, "especially when one of them is so small."

She wasn't just small; she was tiny. A baby bug, sniffling into his shirt. Gary curled his toes around the chip in his shoe. He wasn't nearly as smart as Helen Guyette gave him credit for. He didn't know how to keep Addie safe, he didn't know how to keep himself alive, and he had no idea how these people would react to anything he did next. 

"She'll cry," he warned. 

Helen ran a hand through Addie's curls. Not affectionately, not like Toni would. Like she was assessing a sculpture or something. Addie whimpered and burrowed into Gary, but Helen slipped a hand between them. "This isn't a choice. You can't help her if you're dead." She blinked over Gary's head at Braud. The click of the trigger pulling back vibrated right through him, into Addie. 

"Sorry, bug," he whispered. He eased his hold and let Helen Guyette take her.

Addie let out a squeak of surprise. She kept hold of his shirt until her arms extended full length; Helen tugged her away and her fingers slipped free. Her mouth opened with indignation, and her little half-teeth flashed white. Gary forgot how to breathe.

"Here we go, Little Miss Pemberton." Helen settled Addie against her hip. Addie, still open-mouthed, stared at her, then at Gary. He'd promised her she'd be okay. Promised Toni he'd keep her safe. What the hell was he doing?

"Here--" He reached for his shoe, but Braud pulled him back. Without Addie's weight in his arms, Gary bounced against the chair, against the gun. "Ow! Damn it, I--"

"Shut up!" Braud whacked him across the back of his head; he saw stars and thought if by some miracle he made it out of this alive, he'd have a headache to rival Toni's. 

Addie screeched and threw herself toward Gary, but Helen walked back behind the desk. "Your mama has brought me a great deal of trouble," she said in the disgusting, cooey voice people who didn't know the first thing about kids used with babies. She held Addie, who kicked and cried, out at arm's length. "So have your bodyguards, but I'll fix everything. Your friend over there is going to help--oh for heaven's sake, _stop_." She gave Addie a quick shake, and Addie broke off-mid cry.

"Don't do that!" Gary shot to his feet. People who shook their kids ended up in the paper. "She's too little--"

Braud shoved him right back down. Helen turned Addie around and held her with one arm across her belly, like a least-favorite doll. Addie stuck out her lower lip and blinked fat tears out of her eyes, but didn't make a sound. 

"There, you see, Mr. Hobson? She'll be fine with me." But Addie had only gone quiet out of shock, Gary knew. And fear. And betrayal. Addie was a _person_. She might survive; Toni might--no, _would_ \--find her and get her back to her mom, but all she knew was here and now, where her world was all wrong. He was the one thing she had left to trust, and he'd let her go. 

Helen curled a lock of Addie's hair around her finger. "Mike Pemberton didn't understand, as I think you do, that I put my own child first in everything, all his life. Even my husband doesn't fully understand. It wasn't enough to make sure the truth about my involvement with Philip's enterprises never came out. I had to ensure my son would be free as well. Kill two birds with one stone." She gave the curl a sharp tug. "I had to warn Rachel not to testify _and_ get that information from Mike. I was sure he had it with him, but my assistants weren't able to find it on his body at the scene of his unfortunate accident. He wouldn't even give it up in the hospital, when he was powerless and dying." 

"She's a _baby_." Half-crushed by the weight of what Helen was saying, Gary couldn't force his voice much above a whisper. "Whatever her father did, he's--he's gone now. You don't have to take it out on her."

"But I do have to keep my promises. I have to follow through on my threats if I want to keep the respect of my associates." She ran a finger down Addie's arm. "Internal bleeding is a difficult way to die, but it was even worse when Mr. Braud told Mike, just before he lost consciousness, that we'd take the one thing he wanted to protect. And now I have."

Gary tried not to fall for the trap she was setting. Forced his eyes to stay open so he wouldn't picture Addie's father dying while Braud whispered his failure into his ear. Tried not to slip into that hell. 

Of course, if someone were to tell him this plush office, with its view of the river framed by skyscrapers, was hell, he'd be tempted to believe it. But it wasn't hell, just the next closest thing, because Addie was there. And there was still a chance he could get her out. "I'm not asking for anything else. You can have the information. You can do whatever you want to me. Just, please, let her go."

"It's not as though she can walk out of here on her own." Helen stood and set Addie on the desk. Addie wobbled, but managed to sit upright, flapping her hands in the air like she was trying to fly to Gary. "Give me the information." 

Gary took a deep breath. Hesitated. There was no going back from this. 

Helen stepped away from the desk and stood over him, arms crossed, blocking his view of Addie. She took an endless second to read his face, then softened. "She can't tell anyone about us. We'll get her back to her mother."

 _Child Missing_ , the paper had said. He didn't believe her for a second. _Bar Owner's Body Found..._ maybe that was the trade he had to make to keep Addie and Toni alive. 

He gulped. "It's in my shoe."

~*~*~*~

It was a quick drive from the courthouse to the station, made quicker when Toni ran every red light. Paul tried to get Hobson on the burner phone, then called his brother-in-law and had him check the condo. Nothing. He also called Winslow and told him to look for Hobson at the station. "Don't ask, just find him."

"Or the baby." Toni dug her fingernails into the steering wheel as she made a left. "She might be alone." If only it were that easy, if only they could find her tucked in a corner somewhere. But that would mean Hobson--

She had to stop thinking like that.

"Winslow's on it. Huh." Paul pushed buttons on his phone and put it up to his ear while she double parked in front of the station and jumped out. "Don't leave it in drive--hey!"

He could take care of the car. Toni sprinted past the bullpen and up the stairs, but it was like a nightmare, chasing something she was too late, too slow, too just plain stupid to catch. Winslow met her at the third floor landing, where both sets of doors were propped open. "Did you find them? Addie, Hobson, they were here, weren't they?"

"He asked for you at intake, but I never saw them." Winslow flung a hand toward the hallway, and she finally tripped--too late, too slow--to the chaos of a dozen uniforms yanking open doors, shouting questions and responses. "We've got a bigger problem."

"What do you mean, bigger?" What could be bigger than Addie disappearing?

"Toni?" Paul's voice echoed from a floor below.

"Up here," she called. 

"That witness from your accident," Winslow said. "He's gone."

She was half-aware of Paul pounding up the stairs to join them; half-aware of Winslow explaining no one connected with her case was in the station; fully aware of what that explanation meant, what it had to mean. Because if Addie wasn't there, if Hobson wasn't there, if the man who'd nearly killed Rachel and Paul wasn't there, it meant they were together, and nowhere good. It meant she was too late. 

"He was in holding," Winslow was saying when her brain caught up with his mouth. "Went in for processing, then Burkhead brought him up here to wait for you. But she got a call--"

"She left him alone?"

"Not exactly." Winslow waved at Carla Burkhead, who hurried out of the melee in the hall, looking both frazzled and pissed.

"Who was this guy?" Toni asked them both.

Carla shook her head. "Refused to give a name, and he didn't have ID on him. I left him with Delano for less than two minutes."

" _Delano_?" 

Carla started at the way Toni snapped out the name. "He was with David Porter from Central. They knocked on the door and told me I had an emergency call from you. Delano said he wanted to help with your task force to make up for leaving his post the other day. He's been so down about it, but--"

"But he's gone now, too," Toni finished, feeling, deep in her chest, the awful click of another puzzle piece locking into place. 

"And no one saw a baby?"

Carla's eyes widened. "I heard one. I was questioning your witness and heard a baby crying in the hall a few minutes before I got the call. Stuck my head out but I didn't see anyone, and it cut off--oh, God, was it Rachel's kid? I was trying to get information out of the suspect, Brigatti, I'm sorry. I had no idea she'd even be here."

"There's more than enough sorry to go around." If anything, Toni was at fault for not alerting them to her suspicions about Delano. "Just _find_ them." She started down the hall, but Paul yanked her back to the landing. 

"Cell phones won't work in there. You have to listen to this." He punched a button and pushed his phone up to her ear. 

Hobson's voice came through, tight with panic. "...don't let her go to the station, don't let her go anywhere alone. She'll understand, just tell her I called--please. It's her life." 

Toni pulled the phone away from her ear and stared at it. She should have known--and maybe part of her had. He'd seen something in the paper about her and come rushing down here to save her like a misguided superhero. With Addie. " _Damn_ it."

"He sounds desperate," Paul said. "No wonder he came here."

He sounded like she was an _and_. Like he'd do anything, no matter how stupid, to save her, but--"He wouldn't put Addie in danger, not on purpose." He'd promised.

Paul shook his head. "That is the voice of a man who'd--" She shrugged off his hand, half-running into the hallway and its chaos. "Toni!" 

She didn't hear the rest; didn't want to. She wanted to find Addie. She caught up with Winslow and Burkhead halfway down the hall. "Is there any material evidence Hobson and the baby were here, anything to show where they went?" She was met with headshakes.

"You know what we have to do," Paul said just behind her. She turned to face him, hoping maybe he had an answer she hadn't thought of, but he said, "If we can't find them, we have to get word to Rachel so she can stop testifying and we can negotiate with whoever has them. It's the only way."

"It's not, it can't be. This is Hobson. How often has he found a way when we couldn't?"

Paul held up his phone. "That was the voice of a guy who's run out of options. The fact he's not here is proof. We need to follow channels on this or it'll be our jobs on the line, and we will never see that little girl again."

"Banks and Ora won't let us negotiate with the Guyettes, even for Addie." They might, actually, if it meant they could find out who the main operator was in all this, because it wasn't Phillip and it sure as hell wasn't Dennis. But that would take more talking than she had time to do. "They'll be too worried about compromising the trial to do anything in time."

"Rachel needs to know how high the stakes are."

"She knows, and she wants to testify anyway." 

"Because she doesn't believe they'll hurt her baby?" Paul asked.

"Because she knows they probably will, and she's pissed," Toni said. Winslow was directing the search for the witness, sending teams out to the rest of the station, the city--God, where were they? This was so hopeless it would have driven Nonna Sylvia to her knees to have a chat with St. Jude. Toni didn't have time for that. "I can't let Rachel down by giving up on Addie."

She caught it out of the corner of her eye, a blur of orange that streaked across the hall from the back stairway door to the storage room, where legend said certain detectives used to take suspects they didn't plan to Mirandize. 

"We at least have to tell Banks," Paul said.

"Wait." She strode down the hall to the back room; its door, like all the others, was open. It had already been searched. But a cat--Hobson's cat--sat atop the table. "Where are they?" she asked the cat, as if it would answer. "Where are they? Come on!"

She could have sworn she saw a flash of intelligence in the cat's eyes. It leapt to the floor, paw extended, and toppled a metal trash can with a clang. A newspaper spilled out, along with the cracked remains of a black cell phone. Toni swept up the newspaper page on top of the mess. The headline and the photo under it hit her like a physical blow: _Bar Owner's Body Found in Chicago River_. The date at the top of the page was July tenth. Tomorrow. 

Found late afternoon today. No cause of death. There was still a chance, but more important, there was a location: the Chicago Avenue Bridge. A second photo at the bottom of the article showed the search and recovery team closing in on the body, though all that was visible of it was a plaid-covered back and an arm caught on a piling. The shirt sleeve was rolled halfway up the forearm, just like Hobson always--

The world went as dizzy as it had after she'd been thrown into the hotel furniture. She put a hand on the file cabinet to steady herself. It wasn't true. Not yet. They could kill him anywhere, dump him any time. "This the best you can do? Where's _Addie_?" she demanded, but when she looked to the table, the cat was gone. 

"Toni?"

Paul startled her and she dropped the paper. She reached for it, but Hobson had asked her not to tell Paul, and she'd seen enough to point her in the right direction. She grabbed the remains of the cell instead. "He was here." 

"How do you know?"

She handed Paul the phone as she pushed past him and out of the room--face-to-face with the back exit. "They went out this way. With Hobson and Addie and our suspect."

"We've already checked it." Winslow joined them; almost everyone else had left the hall. "The security cameras in the alley were disabled."

"We're going after them." Toni started back down the hall, Paul and Winslow in her wake.

"You know where they are?"

"I know where to start looking."

"How--" Paul pulled her up short with a hand on her arm again, and if he noticed that arm was shaking, he was smart enough not to say so. "I'm used to asking how Hobson knows what he knows, but I'm sure as hell not used to asking you."

She glared up at him. "Not now."

"Yes, now. I'm sorry, but this is how it works. If you don't have a good reason to know where to look, we have to play the game. It's the only guarantee the Guyettes will keep the baby alive."

"Regs can't save Addie. Or Hobson."

Paul's grip tightened. "I'm not talking about regs, not this time. I'm on your side, and Hobson's for that matter. But we're running out of time." He swallowed. "That little girl is--she's wearing Gracie's clothes. We need to do whatever it takes to save her. We need to find out where _she_ is."

"She's with Hobson." Who'd come here looking for Toni, which meant it was all on her--the mess, the missing, and finding a solution everyone could survive. "He won't leave her unless they kill him. If we find him, we'll find Addie." She marched to the stairs and started down.

"You willing to bet everything on that?"

"I'm betting Addie's _life_ on it. I do know where to find them." Or she would, if she could just think for five seconds without someone telling her what she had to do, where she had to go. She _knew_ Hobson now, even if it was too late, and that meant she could figure out what he'd do and where he'd go. "Or at least I know how."

Paul exchanged a look with Winslow. "Is this some magic hunch? God, Toni, you don't just like the guy--you're turning into him!" 

Maybe it was a hunch, but it was based on more than magic. She ticked clues off on her fingers. "A gala at Helen Guyette's gallery attended by police brass. A leak on my team--Delano looks good for it. Delano is with Porter, who works robbery under Captain Benning, who was at the gala. They're gone, my suspect's gone, and Hobson and Addie are gone." At the bottom of the stairs, she whirled on Winslow. "Get on your computer. I need a list of properties the Guyettes own in this part of town. Anywhere along the North Branch of the river." The photo of Hobson's body had been snapped--would be snapped--about three miles away. They were close. There might still be time.

"Already on it," Winslow said. "We sent teams to Dennis Guyette's old campaign headquarters on Roosevelt and an office building down by Printer's Row that's one of Phillip's holdings."

"No, the _north_ branch of the river. I want places Maurice and Helen own."

Winslow's frown made him look like a confused Weimaraner. "Dennis Guyette's parents aren't involved in the mob."

"Once of them has to be."

"Toni, c'mon, I'm running point on this missing suspect of yours--"

The ticking clock had started up again, but this time it beat the rhythm of what she knew. "There's a missing _baby_. She's eight months old. She can't speak for herself. She can't even walk yet. Tell me who, exactly, you signed up to protect."

Winslow blinked, looking almost hurt, but he gave her a sharp nod. "You're right. Go. I'll call you."

"Call Paul's cell, not dispatch," she threw over her shoulder as they headed out the door. "Last chance to go to the courthouse instead," she muttered to Paul when they reached the car. "Save your own job."

"I'm in. I told you. Maybe I can save your job." His phone rang as soon as she put the car in gear. "Winslow says Maurice has his architecture offices on West Kidzie and Carpenter," he relayed. 

"Too far west. What else?"

"There's Helen Guyette's gallery in the Dumont Building, off Halstead," he said after listening for a minute. "Warehouse, charity offices, and sculptures."

If Helen really was the one pulling strings, why would she bring them anywhere that obvious? But it was the best bet. "Where they had the fundraiser the other night?"

"Yeah, but--"

"That has to be it." Toni hooked a left from the right turn lane and channeled her fear into weaving through traffic as fast as she could. "Tell Winslow to get his ass down there and bring lots of friends."

~*~*~*~


	13. Chapter 13

For the first--probably only--time, Gary seemed to have surprised the mob. All of them. Porter and Delano exchanged wary glances, and Helen Guyette looked down at his feet as if she expected Mike Pemberton's ghost to jump out of his shoe.

"I took a computer chip out of Fred. Her toy platypus." Gary reached for his foot, but Braud grabbed his arm and yanked him back against the chair. "You think I got a gun in there?" If he had, he would have used it a long time ago to help the little girl who sat nearly forgotten on the desk. Even though Addie was a few feet away, it felt like a mile. Her eyes were wide open, but she didn't seem to be connecting with anything. She rocked her weight from her hands to her butt as if she were about to launch herself forward. 

"He hid a computer disk in a stuffed animal and you didn't find it?" Helen asked Delano. "You were in that house how many times?"

"Welcome to the future. Everything's getting smaller," Porter said.

Helen motioned toward Delano. "You get it out." 

Porter smirked; Delano knelt with a grunt and untied the shoe. He pulled it off Gary's foot and peered inside, nose wrinkling. 

"Not there." Gary wiggled his toes. "It's in the sock." Delano rolled his eyes and yanked off the sock; the black chip flew out and landed on the floor. Porter swept in and picked it up. 

"And it contains...everything?" Helen held out her hand, palm up, and Porter dropped the chip in it.

Gary shrugged. "I don't know. I found it in the toy and guessed what it must be, but I didn't have a computer handy. I just assumed, since Mike was the tech genius, and nobody's found that information anywhere else, this had to be it. Why else would he go through all the trouble to hide it, even from his wife?" Helen's eyes lit with genuine relief; maybe she was partly human after all. "So now we've got a fair trade, right? Give me--" He pulled against Braud's hold, leaning to one side so he could see around Helen to the desk, where Addie stopped rocking and focused on him. She wasn't 'the baby,' she wasn't 'the kid.' He scooted forward, ignoring Braud and his gun. "Let me hold Addie." 

Helen turned the chip over in her fingers, watching Gary closely, then handed it back to Porter. "See if it's real."

Porter checked the computer and shook his head. "Can't. Need a reader with the right size slot."

"Why not destroy it?" Delano asked. 

"I have no way of knowing it's the real thing if I do that," Helen said. "We'll have to--"

Turcotte banged the door open, shouting, "We've got company!" Addie shrieked and tottered forward onto her hands. "That bitch cop just pulled up." 

Helen and the others barked out orders and questions. Braud's hold on Gary eased a fraction, but Gary's attention was on Addie, who crawled toward the edge of the desk, crying "Dadadababa!"

"Give me the chip!" Helen demanded, while Delano said something about getting the hell out. No one but Gary saw Addie reach the edge of the desk and keep going. Her mouth froze open in a tiny, toothy "O" when her hands hit air and gravity took over. Gary dove for her; Braud lunged over him and snatched her up by the straps of her sunsuit before she hit the floor. Gary got a hand on her foot, but Braud yanked her away and kicked him hard in the side of the face, then in the gut. Sharp pain--and Addie's indignant yell--crashed through him. 

"Shut her up!" Delano yelled. 

"No!" Gary could hardly move his jaw, but he didn't want Braud trying to quiet Addie again, not like before. "He'll--"

Braud drove his shoe into Gary's side, into his ribs, into his bare ankle, cutting off words and air, everything but Addie's frantic cries, until Helen barked, "Enough. Enough!"

Everyone went quiet, even Addie, who traded her screams for hiccupping sobs. Gary took a second to breathe and reattach his mind to his body--but damn, his body hurt.

"You two get rid of your coworkers," Helen snapped somewhere over his head, "and you two take him outside." Addie's sobs went muffled, and for one terrifying second Gary was sure Braud was suffocating her again--but then Braud hauled him to his feet, and in his tilted vision he saw Helen walk out the door with the green quilt. Which was wrapped around Addie.

"No!" Gary shouted. "Add--" Braud released him and delivered a thudding fist to his ribs, propelling him back into the desk. Something cracked on his next breath, and he couldn't take another one deep enough to get his protests out. 

He gripped the edge of the desk, trying to hold himself up, trying to _think_. Toni was on her way, and Addie--Addie was--through the black and stars crowding at his vision, Gary heard Porter say, "Take him out behind the dumpsters. Don't leave any trace." He blinked and saw Porter and Delano go out the door, after Toni. He pushed off the desk and threw himself toward them, but fell over the toppled chair. 

Braud and Turcotte hauled him to his feet--one still sneakered, the other bare. The twin Hulks hauled him down the hall, through the back door, and onto the catwalk. When he tried to plant his bare foot on the metal grating, the pain in his ankle buckled his whole leg. Turcotte growled something about keeping him quiet, but they were the ones stomping along the catwalk. 

The rattling stairs down to the warehouse floor were too narrow for them to walk side by side. Braud went first, and Turcotte shoved Gary along between them. Gary grabbed the railing to keep from taking a header off the stairs. Turcotte pushed him forward. "Move!"

Halfway down, he heard Addie's cry turn sharper, echoing back to him like a wake-up call. He jammed his elbow backward into Turcotte's gut, then somersaulted over Braud and down the steps--not the best way to go, but it got him a head start--and rolled onto the concrete floor of the warehouse, into a wooden crate that tottered and fell into a stack of boxes. Worst game of dominoes ever, but it bought him time. 

He pulled himself up on a red and silver metal sculpture a head taller than he was and propelled himself forward, away from the grunts and shouts, toward the exit where he guessed Helen was headed. He half-hopped, half-ran from the footsteps that thudded behind him, closer all the time. The haphazard rows of sculptures and crates kept ending abruptly, forcing him to turn around every ten yards or so. He pulled over a shelving unit and a couple of crates as he ran, hoping to create obstacles. 

Just as Addie's cries grew clearer, and he knew he had to be gaining on Helen, he got turned around. He made a left when he should have gone right and ended up five yards from Braud, who lifted his gun with a demonic grin. Gary reached for the nearest sculpture, a steel tower topped by spread copper wings and a buffalo's head, and pulled it over. It hit a shelving unit, sent boxes toppling and glass flying, then splintered a stack of pallets. Gary turned his back on the gun and the mess and launched himself toward the sliver of daylight slashing through the maze of crates.

~*~*~*~

Toni's heart triple-timed against her rib cage as she pulled into the circular dive in front of the Dumont building. If she'd had an interior clock before, it'd been a travel alarm. This was Big Ben.

"What makes you so sure they're here?" Paul asked. 

A half-remembered photograph she'd never seen. A cat. A newspaper. A black and white photo of a rolled-up plaid sleeve caught on a bridge piling. 

"It's the most logical, untraceable thing to do." This time, she remembered to turn off the car. Somewhere along the line, Paul had shed his suit jacket, and she took a second to pull off her sweater. No point in disguising who they were now. She stared out the windshield, trying not to let her own words shape images in her mind. "Dump his body in the river. Hope it gets carried downstate. Even if we found his body, unless we could trace the bullet--" She gulped, realizing a lot of bullet-tracing led back to her lately. "--we wouldn't be able to prove where it came from. If there even is a bullet."

"Toni--"

"You got any better ideas, you should have let me know ten minutes ago." 

Paul checked the clip on his gun. "How much ammo do you have in that thing?" he asked, nodding at the Browning she'd extracted from her holster.

"Enough." There were at least ten shots left, but if she was going to fire that many times in a building where someone had Addie..."I don't want to get into a shootout with the baby around."

" _If_ she's here," Paul said as they got out of the car, "we might not have much choice."

"No one wants to take these guys out more than I do. But I don't want any innocent civilians caught in the crossfire."

"I don't want that either. Hell, I like Hobson, too. When he's not being a nutjob."

The gallery doors were locked, and no one came when she knocked on the glass. She shaded her eyes and caught movement near the reception desk, a small orange-brown blur that wove through the big sculptures at the back and dashed up the open staircase to the offices above. Fluid. Feline. "They're here," she said, pounding on the glass with the butt of the Browning.

"How the hell--"

"I saw--" _Pound_. "--I mean, I heard--" _Pound_. "--a baby." 

"How could you--"

The door shattered, and they both jumped back for the second or two it took the glass to settle. Then Toni was through, running for the stairs. Once they'd moved beyond the radius of crunching glass, she could hear raised voices and running footsteps overhead. At the top of the stairs, she pushed through another glass door, caught sight of a bigger, darker blur coming at her from a cross hallway, and ducked into the open doorway of a break room. "Chicago PD!" she shouted, raising her gun, but Paul stumbled into her. They both fell back into the break room as a shot whistled past. 

"Believe me now?" she asked.

"Winslow, we've got shots fired," Paul whispered into his phone. "Drive faster." 

He tried to shut the door, but Toni stopped him. "I'm not getting pinned in here." 

They took up positions, Toni on the open side of the door, Paul just behind it. "So much for not having a shootout. Can you tell where he--"

"Shh." She inched closer to the opening. She could make out two whispered voices, both male, from down the hall that ran perpendicular to the break room, but she couldn't tell what they were saying. As far as she could hear, there was no one in the much shorter hall outside the break room. "We have to get past them." 

Before Paul could answer, footsteps thudded toward them. She locked eyes with Paul, listening for the exact moment--"Now!"

Paul threw the door open, and Toni spun on her heel, slamming her other foot down to stop the turn, both hands keeping the Browning steady. The man who skidded to a stop, his nose a couple inches from the muzzle of her gun, had no chance at all to get his own gun in a firing position, and he knew better than to try against two cops--because he was one, too. 

"Drop it, Porter," she snapped, and after a moment in which he started to turn his head and check over his shoulder, then must have thought better of it, he screwed his mouth up in a snarling pout and dropped his gun. 

"I've got him," Paul said, pulling cuffs from his back pocket. "Go."

Toni took off down the adjoining hallway. Another shot whistled past her, and she dropped into a crouch in a doorway, but the door itself was locked. All the doors in this hall but one were closed. The open one was where the shot had come from.

"Toni!" Paul rounded the corner, gun out, and ducked another shot, plastering himself against the door across from hers. A muffled crash sounded from somewhere behind the door at the end of the hall.

She pointed at the open door. "Cover me."

"Yup."

"There are two of us and one of you," she shouted. They waited, pressed against their respective doors, for the answering shots. When they came, Paul got off a couple of his own, sending the shooter back into the room. Toni dashed down the hall, staying as close to the wall as she could. 

She waited by the open door until Paul called, "Give it up!" The shooter stuck his gun arm out. Toni brought the Browning and her own forearm down on his wrist whip fast. Heard--felt--a satisfying crack. The department-issued Glock dropped to the carpet, and she stuck the barrel of the Browning in the face of another cop. This one she knew well. 

"Delano." She took a step, forcing him into the office. "You lying, sneaking, two-faced, weasel _bastard_ son of a bitch."

He'd gone nearly grey, cradling his wrist against his stomach. "I had to."

"She's a _baby_." Though she managed to keep the Browning steady, Toni was a hairsbreadth from completely losing control. If Paul hadn't been there, looking worriedly from her to Delano and back, she might have done worse than back the guy up against the desk in the bare-bones office. "What you had to do was _protect_ her, and you--" There wasn't time for this, the damn ticking clock her whole body had become reminded her. "Where is she?"

Delano shook his head. "Gone."

"Toni," Paul said, with a gesture at the floor. She drew a long breath and took in the overturned chair, the navy backpack spilling diapers, the all-too familiar shoe.

"Gone _where_?"

Delano didn't answer her question; another crash--louder, longer--did. She was down the hall, through the doors before Paul could yell at her to wait. The door opened onto a catwalk a floor and a half or so above the warehouse. She had a birds-eye view of it, of the trail of toppled sculptures and splintered wooden crates that led to--there. Dark hair and plaid, an oddly bent back, hobbling, but alive--Hobson, heading for the open loading doors. Relief stole her breath until she saw he was alone, his arms empty. She opened her mouth to yell at him, but then she saw a guy the size of a linebacker closing in on him from behind, raising a wood plank over his head. She didn't need a newspaper to know the force of that thing was likely to kill Hobson in one blow.

She might have shouted his name. All she remembered afterward was planting her feet on the catwalk in a firing stance, double-gripping the Browning and feeling the kick into her shoulder, the excruciating pinch between her thumb and forefinger, the eternity it took the bullet to traverse the warehouse, hit the guy's knee, and drop him right on top of Hobson. 

She flew down the steps, jumping the last few, and hit the concrete floor running. Skidded through splintered wood and porcelain and around a pile of crates, following the trail she'd seen from above. By the time she reached them, Hobson had crawled out from under his attacker, who lay on his back, groaning and clutching the bloodied knee of his cargo pants. Hobson crouched next to him, dazed, gasping, and bruised. She followed the reach of the man she'd shot--the same one who'd attacked her in the hotel--to her gun. She brought her heel down hard on his fingers and retrieved her Glock, tucking the Browning in her back waistband. Turned her attention away from the guy's groans to Hobson.

He'd pulled himself up on a twelve-foot-tall swirl of bronze and steel, staring ahead with the look of a man who'd been through hell and was still stuck in the middle of it. "Addie." His eyes closed and he slipped back down. 

She ran up to him, caught him under one arm before he hit the floor. "Where is she?"

"Brig--To--she's out--" He waved a hand toward the open doors of the loading bay. "Helen--" 

"Helen Guyette?" she asked, like a complete idiot. Who the hell else could it be?

He looked over her shoulder and his eyes went wide. "Go!" he croaked, pushing her under his arm and past him. She took a couple steps toward daylight, heard grunts and crashes behind her--but there was a squeal of tires out in the parking lot. 

She ran for the dock, knowing she'd probably gotten Hobson killed all over again, but Addie--she blinked against the fierce sunlight. Addie was in that Lexus, the one headed for the street. 

There was no thinking with the Glock; it was an extension of her arm, her brain. She fired twice in one breath and hit the back tires. The sound of the shots crashed against her skull, blocking out the squeal of the car skidding to a stop, the sirens closing in from a few blocks away.

Toni started toward the loading dock steps, but Hobson flew by her in a blur of plaid and denim. He jumped off the edge, landed on his side with a half-grunt, half-yelp, then popped up and limp-ran to the car. Toni turned back to cover him, but no one emerged from the warehouse. By the time she reached the lot, he was on his knees by the open back door of the Lexus, drawing out an armful of green quilt.

"Toni!" Paul's shout from the dock yanked her attention around, then back in the direction he pointed. Helen Guyette, disheveled and determined, rounded the hood of the Lexus with a gun pointed at a downward angle at Hobson, who was staggering to his feet. With Addie. 

In the clogged moment it took Toni to plant her feet and bring up her Glock, Hobson saw Helen and froze in a half-crouch. The clock in Toni's head banged midnight--time was up.

"Down!" she shouted. Hobson dropped. The air splintered into double shots, one half a tick behind the other; into Helen Guyette's scream as a bullet caught her wrist and sent her gun flying.

Toni's ears rang, _againagainagain_ , but her feet worked, and they pumped her toward Hobson, who was curled over Addie, unmoving except for his heaving, shredded breaths. He hadn't been shot. He couldn't have. Her shot had been the first one, because if it wasn't--

Helen slumped on the hood, yelling in a pitch Toni's battered ears couldn't pick up. _Secure the scene_ , her cop brain insisted, louder than the ringing of the exploded clock. She kicked Helen's gun out of reach, thought about kicking Helen for good measure, but Paul was there, mouthing, "I've got her." The words filtered in through the ringing a couple seconds behind his lips. Toni spun toward Hobson, toward the plaid lump with a green blanket at his feet.

"Hobson?" She touched his shoulder, and he unfolded and rocked onto his butt, back against the car. Addie stirred in his arms; her head popped up out of the quilt and she let out a wail. Hobson touched his forehead to hers. A reddening bruise above his jaw burned bright against Addie's hair. He ran a hand over her face, swiping her tears with his thumb. "I'm sorry, sweetheart, I tried," he kept saying. The "t"s were lost in his almost-southern slur.

"Is she hurt?" Toni's voice echoed weirdly in her head, but at least she could hear herself. And Hobson.

"I didn't mean to let her go," he said in the dazed voice of someone in the mental vicinity of Mars. He didn't take his eyes off Addie. "They made me, I didn't want to--"

Cop cars, marked and unmarked, pulled into the lot, and she made out Winslow's voice, though not exactly what he was saying, amidst the chaos.

Closer, Paul asked, "He hit?"

"I don't know." She waved a hand behind her. "Get her away from them, please. Damn it, Hobson, would you just--"

His gaze skittered to the Glock in her hand. "No more guns," he said hollowly.

She tucked the gun into her holster, then crouched next to him. There was a bump on Addie's temple, redder than the rest of her blotched face. When Toni touched it, Addie howled even louder, grabbed hold of Hobson's shirt with both fists, and fell face first into him. Hobson rubbed circles on her back and looked at Toni. Almost. His gaze was in the right place, but it wasn't focused. "You found us." 

"What'd you expect? Come on, get up." She tried for commanding, but it came out shaky and adrenaline-laced. Still, he followed orders, or tried to, pushing off the ground and letting out a grunt when he staggered into her. He kept one arm tight around Addie, protecting her head, her neck, her little butt in the crook of his elbow. 

"She was on the floor of the car," he said around another rattled breath. "That woman just dumped her there." He put his back against the car and bounced Addie, even though it made him wince.

Toni touched his arm, and he turned Addie a little, so she could get a better look at her. She smoothed Addie's hair and whispered, "You're okay, baby bug. You're okay." The bump looked scary, but Addie snuggled her cheek against Toni's palm.

"I swear, I didn't want to let go of her." Hobson's eyes were huge, almost as round as Addie's. "I didn't mean to let it get that far."

"I figured. Look, I need to know she's okay. Let me take her for a second." He tightened his hold. "Hobson, it's _me_." After a couple seconds, his shoulders dropped. Toni reached in and gathered Addie in her arms; Hobson let out a knife-shredded breath and slumped back against the car. 

A few yards away, Helen screeched, "I'm a _mother_ , for God's sake. I was trying to protect my son!"

Addie held herself stiff for a second or two, staring at Toni as if she needed to be sure of her. Finally, she grabbed Toni's hair and unleashed a string of nonsense that sounded almost angry, as if she was telling Toni every rotten thing that had happened to her in the past few hours.

"I know, kiddo. I'm sorry, too." The babbling gave Toni hope. The only visible damage was the bump on her head and a finger-long scratch on her arm. She looked a lot better off than Hobson, who ignored the activity swirling around them and watched Toni, wary and anxious. "I think she'll be okay. What about you? You all right?"

"Not really. But you--" He looked at Toni, _registered_ , finally, that she was there. Guilt, fear, shock played across his battered face. It told her exactly why he'd risked leaving the condo with Addie. "You're alive." He wrapped an arm around them both; his heart raced against her ear. "Ton--Brigatti. I thought--"

"I know." Despite the unsecured scene, despite the fact she was still on the job, she leaned into his embrace. Addie's cheek was warm against hers. "I thought the same thing about you."

He drew in a sharp, too-short breath and muttered, "Sorry," as he pulled away. She thought he was apologizing for the cat tangling itself around her ankle until Winslow cleared his throat behind her. She fought the urge to smack the smirk off his face and managed to stand up straight, even though Addie still had a fistful of her hair.

"If you're finished with the lovefest, partner, some of us would like to know what the hell just happened, and who all these people are."

He was right, of course. This was her job, and she could do it, even though relief and Addie's little hiccups against her neck made her legs feel a bit like cooked spaghetti. This was still her case, her task force. "Everyone except Hobson gets taken in." She pointed to Delano and Porter, who were already cuffed and were being led to a squad car by Carla Burkhead and Aaron Perez. "Even them. They're both--"

"--bad guys." Hobson finished. "What about--" He couldn't get more than a couple words out without sucking air between his teeth. "Marissa. Crumb. They okay?"

"They're fine. Marissa heard Addie at the station, which is how I knew you were there."

"Had to go," he said, looking absolutely stricken again. "I found--" Despite whatever was wrong with him, he bent over, reaching for a small black piece of plastic on the concrete. He groaned and wrapped his arm around his torso. Winslow picked up the plastic and held it between his fingers. Hobson, still doubled over, shook his head. "It's not--I told her that was the evidence, Mike's--Mike put it--Fred. Real one's at the condo."

"Jesus, Hobson, would you sit down or something?" He still looked like a dope--a scared dope, one who hadn't quite found his way out of whatever had happened in that building. She wanted to shove him into the car--or better yet, onto a gurney--but the EMTs from the first ambulance on scene were tending to Helen Guyette, who was threatening to sue CPD, the federal government, and every last one of them for unlawful arrest and permanent injury. 

"Ma'am, you threatened to shoot a police detective and a federal witness." Paul's voice was steady, but the twitch in his jaw told Toni she wasn't the only one who half-wished she could have aimed a little closer to Helen Guyette's heart. If she even had one. "You're lucky you're still healthy enough to yell at us."

"That chip is falsified evidence!" she shrieked.

Hobson stood up and wedged himself between Toni and Helen Guyette's line of sight. "It wasn't the real chip!" he yelled hoarsely, then turned back to Toni. "It's not even--she was going to kill Addie, and you and, it's not--"

"You found the missing evidence?" Toni asked, just to make sure.

"At the condo. It was in Fred." He nodded at Winslow. "That's the memory chip from the burner phone. I didn't want the real thing anywhere near Addie, not anymore."

"Got yourself a real genius there, partner," Winslow whispered. "You really know how to pick 'em." If she hadn't been holding Addie, she would have wrung his damn neck. She tried to wave a second group of EMTs over to help Hobson, but they took off for the warehouse.

Whatever else was wrong with Hobson, his hearing worked fine. He took a limping step toward Winslow. "You know what, she just saved my life, and she doesn't need you giving her a hard time about--about--" He took--tried to take--a couple hitching breaths, and all the color drained out of his face. 

"Shut up. Both of you." Toni backed Winslow away from Hobson. "There's at least one of her goons down in the warehouse--"

"Two," Hobson gasped behind her.

"Two. One of them is probably our escaped suspect." She shifted Addie, who let go of her hair in favor of sucking on the neck of her t-shirt. "Go with the EMTs. Make sure they don't get away this time."

"Sure thing, Mama Bear." Winslow gave her a wink that meant he'd have an earful for her later and trotted off toward the building. 

"Over here!" She waved the final medic to the car. 

"Eeee!" Addie imitated Toni's wave. And laughed. Toni widened her eyes at Hobson, and his battered face softened into a grin. His eyes even went a little green.

"These two need help," she told the EMT who jogged over to them, a guy she'd seen around more than one clean-up. She turned to Hobson, who was hanging, white-knuckled, onto the roof and door of the car. "I have a huge scene here, and I need to lock it down. Can you make sure Addie gets checked out?" 

He nodded, but he still looked like he was about to pass out, so she turned to hand Addie off to the medic. "It's okay," she said when Addie clung to her, one hand crushing her t-shirt, the other her hair. "They'll take good care of you."

"No." Hobson found some last reserve of strength and pushed himself upright. He reached in and disentangled Addie's hand from Toni's hair. "I got her." He barely had strength to talk, let alone hold a baby, but Addie was probably the only one who could keep him on his feet long enough to make it to the ambulance. Toni nodded and let him take her. 

"I don't want them anywhere near the rest of these yahoos, you hear me?" she told the medic. "And they stay together." Despite all the eyes on them--Paul was on the other side of the car, and Banks was bearing down on her--Toni reached down and back. There was a lot she wanted to say to Hobson, but even if they hadn't been in the middle of a crowd, she wouldn't have known where to begin. Instead, she tangled her fingers in his and squeezed. "I want Hobson with my witness at all times." 

She met his dumbfounded look with a wry grin as she pulled her hand free, then touched Addie's nose with a finger. Addie pulled it into her mouth and bit down. "Love you, bug," she whispered. To Hobson, she added, "Let them help you." She waited for his nod, then went to do her job.

~*~*~*~


	14. Chapter 14

"Hungry little thing. Sure you won't let me take her?" The EMT, a friendly-faced guy named Carter, stood up from taping Gary's ankle. Gary, who sat on the edge of the open back of the ambulance, shook his head. He'd let Addie go a couple times too many today; besides, she was busy sucking down the bottle Carter'd produced from his medical supplies. Someone must have told the medics there was a baby involved. Carter's grin twisted. "We really need to check out your ribs. I don't like the sound of your breathing."

"I'm breathing fine," Gary lied. Whatever aches and pains he had were trivial compared to what had happened to Addie--to what might have happened to her. She had his shirt clutched in one hand and the other wrapped around one of his fingers. "You sure she's okay? That bump on her head looks bad."

"It's already going down. It'll leave a bruise, but she's responding perfectly. No sign of concussion or brain injury." 

"One of those guys nearly suffocated her. He put his hand over her face and she couldn't breathe. And that woman shook her." Gary wasn't sure if he was telling the guy for the sake of medical accuracy, or because he had to confess what Addie had been through before the guilt ate him alive.

But Carter shot his glare at the group gathered around the ambulance across the parking lot, where Armstrong, who must have drawn the short straw, kept watch over Helen Guyette and Braud. Turcotte had been taken to the hospital already; they'd gotten him out from under the shelving unit Gary had pulled onto him, but he'd looked unresponsive when they'd loaded his gurney onto the ambulance. "Can't believe anybody would--" Carter cut himself off with a quick shake of his head. 

"Me neither, and I was there." Gary traced the scratch on Addie's arm. He'd been there, and he hadn't stopped her getting hurt. 

Carter dangled one end of the tape left from wrapping Gary's ankle over Addie's hands. Normally, she would have played with it, but she took a long last pull on the bottle and turned her head away, snuggling into Gary. 

"Kids are more resilient than we give them credit for. I don't know what she had to do with all this, but from the looks of you, I'd say she's lucky to come out of it in such good shape."

Lucky, Gary thought, brushing the crystallized tear tracks on Addie's cheeks with his thumb. She was fighting to keep her eyes open, but her hold didn't loosen one bit. Lucky he'd gotten her kidnapped and hurt in his misguided effort to save Toni, who was over at the loading dock conferring with her captain. She stood with her feet slightly apart, arms akimbo; in her t-shirt, jeans, and holster, she looked like some kind of warrior goddess. Our Lady of Witness Protection. If Gary had found another way to warn her, she could have saved herself--and protected Addie and Rachel--just fine. 

So why had she let him stick around for four days?

Maybe it had something to do with why she'd squeezed his hand a few minutes ago. But what did any of it mean, if they ended whatever they'd begun in the past few days with half-smiles and halfhearted plans to go on a date sometime in the undetermined future, like they always seemed to when a case was done or a bad guy was caught? That was when she usually pulled away from him, and he was never sure if he was supposed to let her go. Now, more than ever, what he really wanted was to follow. To make sure she knew he didn't _want_ her to go.

"...not so much, huh?"

Gary dragged himself back to what Carter was saying. "What?"

"I said we--adults--don't mend quite as fast. You really should get an x-ray. Or five." He jabbed a thumb over his shoulder, toward Banks and Toni. "I know Detective Brigatti can be kind of scary, but she didn't mean you shouldn't ever put the kid down."

"I don't need x-rays." He'd cracked a rib or two in the past few years; time was about the only cure. He'd probably have more than enough of that in the next few days, now that all this--not just the mob, but his time with Addie and Toni--was over. "What I need is a phone." Toni had said Marissa was okay, but he wanted to make sure.

"No calls until you let me check you out. At least let me wrap up your chest until you can see your own doctor," Carter said when Gary shook his head. "I promise, it'll hurt a lot less and heal faster if you let me tighten everything up. We can do it here or at the hospital, but we have to do it."

A hospital wouldn't let Gary stay with Addie. They would take her away while they poked around his chest, put her in some room on the children's floor. She'd think he'd left her again. "Do it here. But just--just wait a bit, okay?"

"She's half asleep. She'll never know if you give her up for a few minutes."

"I'll know." Gary nodded toward Helen Guyette. "You can help them with her if you want."

"Rather patch up an anaconda." Still, Carter set the wrap down and went to the other group. He said something that made Armstrong look over at Gary, but before Gary could figure out what was going on, Addie came out of her half-doze and pulled herself up on his shirt, scrunching up her face. 

"I won't let you go," Gary said. "Not this time. I swear it, kiddo--hey!" He jumped when Cat brushed over his bare foot and jumped up next to him. Addie threw herself at Cat with a squeal--a happy one. Less than an hour ago, Gary hadn't been sure she'd ever make that sound again. He _had_ been sure he wouldn't be around to hear it if she did--and then Toni had shown up. "How much of this is your doing?" he asked Cat. Instead of answering, Cat wormed his way onto Gary's lap, and Addie curled around him with a contented sigh. In less than a minute, she was sound asleep.

"See what I mean?" Carter was back, as if he had radar. "She's down for the count. Where'd the cat come from?"

"Dunno." He never had, and never would.

"If you want to tuck her onto the gurney back there for a few minutes, we can wrap you up."

"Not yet. I want to make sure she's all the way asleep." Moving would hurt, and he was starting to lose the adrenaline rush that had propelled him through the last few hours. What he really needed was a nap. But he had to stay awake and alert until he was sure Addie was safe. And until he had some idea where things stood with Toni.

Carter shook his head. "You must really love your little girl."

Like the nurses calling him "Dad," Carter's misunderstanding caught him right in the heart. Was this what he wanted? How much trouble would the paper bring to his own kids, if he ever had them? And what did that have to do with the things he was starting to think about Brigatti--no, about Toni? 

"She's not mine," Gary admitted. "But I do--well, I care about her. A lot."

Armstrong, who'd strode up behind Carter, snorted. "Give me a minute. I'll talk some sense into him." Carter let out a long-suffering sigh and wandered off again.

"Brigatti told me to stay with her." Gary rubbed Addie's back and hoped Armstrong didn't notice his hand was still shaking. It was just adrenaline. "And I'm not going to the hospital."

Armstrong looked him up and down, shrugged. "Your choice, Dad."

Gary nodded to the loading dock, where Toni was handing the big silver gun she'd had since the hotel over to Banks. Carter hovered nearby, no doubt waiting to give her a full report. "Is she in trouble?"

"You kidding? They'll probably make her a captain." Armstrong flashed him a rare, wry grin, but it vanished when he looked at Addie. The little sunsuit and t-shirt she wore were his daughter's, Gary remembered. "Is she okay?"

Gary brushed a few curls off Addie's forehead. "Yeah. No thanks to me," he added before Armstrong could say it. "I had to go to the station. Toni was in trouble, or she--"

"Was going to be," Armstrong finished. "That why you destroyed a few hundred thousand dollars worth of modern art in there?"

"That was for Addie." Gary watched Toni tuck her hair behind her ear and nod at what Carter was saying--he could just about guess--then turn and start toward them. "It was worth it." He spread his hand over Addie's back, trying to absorb her calm, even breathing, but he couldn't draw a breath that deep.

"You did good, Hobson." Armstrong's voice held a surprising note of warmth--but maybe that was because he saw Toni approaching. "Any time you want to babysit for Grace, give me a call. But you have to leave the cat at home. Bring Toni instead." 

The look Toni flashed him was almost unreadable. Almost, Gary thought, because while there was a lot she wouldn't say right now going on in her eyes, her lips were curved in the faint, affectionate smile she'd reserved for Addie the past few days.

"We've been over this before," she said, knocking Armstrong's elbow. "I am not your nanny."

"Yeah, 'cause you're obviously so bad with kids."

Toni rolled her eyes. "Banks wants your version of how we knew to be here."

He looked from Toni to Gary and back. "This'll be fun."

Once he'd left, Toni--was he supposed to go back to calling her Brigatti now that the case was over? He decided not to risk either one just yet, at least not out loud--crossed her arms. "I'm getting grief from the medic. You have to let him look you over."

He kicked out his taped ankle. "He did."

"Under the plaid."

He looked down at Addie, wishing she would wake up--but that was kind of selfish. "She needs me right now."

"Or you need her. What the hell were you _thinking_ , leaving the condo?" Unlike Gary, she seemed to still be riding the adrenaline rush; her voice was wound tight and she bounced on the balls of her feet. Which meant he was probably in for it. 

"I'm sorry. I didn't think we could get into that much trouble in a police station, but even if I'd known--" It felt ridiculous to admit this when he knew how close he'd come to losing Addie, but it was the truth. He was pretty sure the paper wanted Toni Brigatti alive as much as he did. "Either way, I don't think we would have made it without you."

"It would have been a lot easier to save your ass if you'd stayed put." She gave a crossed-arm shrug. "But I guess if it wasn't for your newspaper, Paul and Rachel would be dead, and I wouldn't have known which trail to follow to find you." 

"You saw my paper?"

She glanced in the direction of the river. When she looked back, she didn't quite meet his eyes. "Thanks to Marissa and Crumb, I knew you'd been at the station. The newspaper was in the interview room, along with the burner phone. It said you'd be killed, but it didn't say where. The rest was police work." She swatted his knee. Ignoring the pains that shot through his torso, he scooted over to make room for her. Cat looked at her and gave a plaintive meow--the one he usually reserved for Marissa or--well, pretty much just Marissa. Toni's hand hovered over Addie, and Gary braced himself for a scolding about Cat, but then she swirled her fingers through Addie's hair. Gary decided it was better not to point out the way a fingertip or two strayed to Cat, nor that Cat purred like a Porsche whenever it happened. At least she wasn't sneezing. Maybe that meant something--he just wasn't sure what.

"So I'm not in trouble?"

"It worked out. Most cops, the good ones, are practical people. We like this kind of outcome, and anyone who helps us get there."

He let his voice drop a little, since teasing seemed to work with her when nothing else would. "You _like_ me?"

The corners of her mouth twitched. "I was talking about Banks. He'll want to hear your version of events, but as long as Rachel and Addie come out of this unscathed, and his department gets the credit for weeding the mob out of CPD and putting the Guyettes away, he won't lock you up."

"You're the one who should get the credit."

"It was a team effort."

She was being nice to him, and he didn't know how to take it. For a few more minutes, they could sit like this, together, with Addie as the binding agent--or maybe the buffer. It wouldn't last, and he wasn't sure how to get what he wanted to tell her out before whatever had happened between them over the past few days evaporated. 

Addie whimpered in her sleep. He lifted her and turned her into his shoulder, wincing at the strain that simple act put on his ribcage. Things went a little grey around the edges for a second or two, and when he could focus again, Toni--so far she was, kind of miraculously, still Toni--was looking at him curiously, with Cat curled on the pavement at her feet. 

"So what exactly made you go to the station?" she asked. "What were they going to do to me?"

No point in keeping it a secret now. He hadn't realized what a relief this would be. Even if he had to figure out what to tell everyone else, for once he didn't have to BS with her. "They were going to kill you in one of those interrogation rooms."

She raised an eyebrow. "They might have tried."

"According to the paper, they would have succeeded."

"Yeah, well, according to your paper, you were supposed to be found floating in the river."

Was there a tiny hitch in her voice? He wasn't sure--too distracted by the way her fingers brushed the rolled-up sleeve of his shirt. Talk about making it hard to breathe.

"I know," he croaked out. "I mean, I didn't know until just before they dragged me out of the station, but--"

"But you knew, and you let them drag you out." Her fingers tightened on his arm.

"I wasn't leaving her."

"I knew you wouldn't." She let go of him to rub a finger along Addie's arm, leaving Gary able to breathe a little easier, but also feeling kind of jealous of the baby--until Addie grabbed the finger and pulled Toni's hand under her stomach. "Oh, bug."

Gary couldn't decide if the kid was comforting herself or Toni, but he didn't hate the steady warmth of her hand against his bruised ribs. It gave him the guts to ask, "Are you sorry you know about the paper?"

She kept her gaze fixed on Addie. "Should I be?"

"Well, now you've got me hanging around, and I'm not the best at--" He waved a hand at the chaos. "At this stuff. Especially when it involves guns."

She turned her face up to him--open. Trusting. Toni Brigatti. "You did okay with what you had. You kept the guns away from her."

"Not far enough. It doesn't make sense." Not that she trusted him, not that anyone did. 

"What are you talking about?"

He counted Addie's breaths. One, two, three. Breaths she wasn't taking a little while ago, because he'd been dumb enough to fight a guy twice his size while holding her, a guy who'd nearly suffocated her. Seemed fair he was having trouble breathing now.

"Hobson? What doesn't make sense?" 

He had to say something, or she'd assume he had a concussion and force him to go to the hospital. "I don't--" He took a breath, and couldn't hide a wince. "I don't know why that paper keeps coming to me, when I mess up like this."

Her hand--steady, warm--didn't move. "You're not the one who hurt her."

"I promised you I'd protect her. She trusted me, and I--" He stopped. He didn't need to tell Toni how he'd messed up. She knew. "She could have grown up thinking I gave her away to those people. If they let her grow up at all."

"Look at her. _Look_." He did--at the perfect curve of Addie's cheek, smooth with sleep. "She _does_ trust you. And you did save her life. More than once, from the look of you."

He shook his head. "If you hadn't shown up, she'd be gone somewhere with that woman." He looked over at Helen, who was being loaded onto an ambulance at last. She'd put her hand in the same spot Toni's was in now, and it hadn't been comforting at all.

"I only found you because you trusted me enough to tell me about your newspaper. If you hadn't, I never would have looked at it."

"But I shouldn't have left the condo. I just--I couldn't forget that guy in the hotel, the way he hurt you." Braud's hands around her neck, the bruise still visible on her temple--the memory was just as awful as the one of Helen Guyette carrying Addie out of that office.

"You did what you had to do. I'm a cop. I get that."

"Addie doesn't. All she knows is that I left her."

"You _came back_ for her. That's what she'll remember. When she's ready, you'll tell her the whole story." Toni's mouth quirked into a grin. "You have good timing for that kind of thing." 

Cat purred even harder against Gary's leg. "You don't think she thinks I let her down?" 

"I'm pretty sure she doesn't think that at all."

He was falling into those dark eyes, and for a second he thought maybe he'd caught up with her at last. "We still talking about Addie?" he whispered.

She held his gaze for an endless heartbeat, trapping him in the space where they were together, finally--then the corners of her eyes creased, releasing him. "Yeah, you dope, we are." She turned her hand over and curved it around Addie's torso. This time Gary released his hold, and she pulled Addie into her lap, leaving his chest cold despite the dank July air. "Let them patch you up, and then we'll take her to her mom."

"You're not going to make me go to the hospital?" Maybe it wasn't quite the end.

Addie whimpered again, and Toni swayed back and forth. "I want to hear the _real_ version of what happened to you two. All of it. Besides, when have I ever made you do anything you don't want to do?"

"Well, there was the whole pretending-to-be-newlyweds-for-the-jewel-thieves thing."

"You didn't hate that."

"I hated sleeping on that footstool all night. And you falling off the roof, and Amber groping me, not to mention--" He broke off as everything he hadn't hated about that case came back to him in a rush, along with the realization that if they hadn't gone anywhere serious after that case, the likelihood they would after this was--

\--well, what the hell was it? "Look, Toni--"

"I don't believe it." Carter was there, all of a sudden, and Gary had no idea how or when he'd shown up. "You got her away from him."

"All in a day's work." Toni hopped down from the ambulance, cradling Addie close. 

"You got a phone?" Gary asked her. "I want to call Marissa, let her know I'm okay."

"Oh, no, Hobson, I won't participate in a conspiracy to let you lie to your partner, not until you let Carter here _make_ you okay."

She was standing in front of him holding Addie. They were both safe, and he was there to see it. He let himself grin. "Just...okay?"

"You're pushing it, Hobson." She turned to Carter. "He's all yours." As she walked away, she shot him an enigmatic smile over her shoulder, leaving him with twice as many unasked questions as before.

~*~*~*~

"You sure you're all right? And Crumb? No, I know...yeah. Long night, huh?" Toni watched Hobson pace with a more pronounced limp than ever in front of the condo's bank of windows, bouncing Addie on one arm. It couldn't be good for him to carry her in his condition--newly swollen ankle, bruised face, a cracked rib or two--but he wouldn't let anyone else hold her, and Addie had napped a good chunk of the afternoon away in his arms while he gave his statement. He'd finally talked Paul into letting him use his phone when Winslow had shown up with three bags of tacos for dinner. Turned out the magic words were, "I can have McGinty's send over some steaks."

That had been after he'd given his statement a third time. Toni knew it was an abbreviated version of what had happened, but everything he'd said lined up with events as they'd unfolded. He'd managed to convince Banks and Winslow, if not Paul, that he'd gone to the station because he'd found the data chip--even though he'd stashed the real chip in a kitchen cupboard. She supposed it made an odd kind of Hobson-Sense. A pair of techs were now coaxing data and documents from the real chip with one of the laptops they'd set up at the island, while Banks and Paul looked over their shoulders.

There wasn't much for her to do at the moment, so she stood guard at the security panel, fingering the packet of hydrocodone pills Carter had slipped her at the scene. "He's refusing to take them, but he'll want them tonight," Carter had said. "What is this guy, some kind of masochist?"

"Some kind of something," she'd told him. She'd been busy giving her own report and contacting Ora and Rachel at the courthouse while Paul took Hobson's statement, but Hobson had flashed her a look more than once while he talked to the others--the same look, with a hint of green sparking in his eyes, he'd had at the ambulance, as if he wanted to tell or ask her something. But if he wouldn't say whatever it was in the ambulance, he wouldn't say it now, not with this crowd hanging around.

 _A propensity toward deception_ , the polygraph tech had said a few months ago, but Hobson very rarely, as far as Toni knew, told outright lies. There were truths he didn't want to reveal, and he protected those as fiercely as he'd protected Addie.

"No, I'm good, really," he insisted a little too emphatically. Toni figured Marissa knew well enough when he fudged that kind of truth. "I don't know what you'll hear tonight--" Hobson turned and caught Toni watching him. He gave her a tired grin as he pried Addie's eager fingers off the cell phone. "--but you know what they say about not believing everything you hear from the news. Yeah, I swear, everybody's in one piece. Baby will be fine, if I can keep the phone out of her mouth. Send Lucas over with those steaks and then close up early if you want. Tell the staff we'll pay them for a full shift. I'll see you tomorrow." He turned away with a half-laugh. "Yeah, I'm sure you will."

"Hey, Toni." Paul waved her over to the island, turning the laptop so she could see a pair of spreadsheets side by side. "Take a look at this." 

"Or this." Winslow held up the Harry Potter book. "A little light reading? I guess it makes sense." He waggled his eyebrows. "I mean, what else were you going to do all night?"

"Shut up, Winslow," she said, and turned her attention to the screen.

"You know what this is?" Banks asked, with an edge in his voice that meant it was something he liked. Their decoding done, the techs leaned against the sink counter, digging into Winslow's stash of tacos.

Maybe it was the remnants of her three-day headache, or the greasy stench of the tacos, but Toni couldn't make sense of the information in front of her. Even when she squinted, the decimal points bounced around. "I'm not an accountant." 

"I used to be," Hobson said, joining the group. "Broker, actually, but my degree's in finance." He handed the phone to Paul and shifted Addie out of the way, reaching in to scroll through a few lines of the spreadsheet on the left. "What you're looking at there are two almost identical ledgers for--whoa. This isn't Dennis Guyette's campaign treasury." He scrolled up to the top, contorting himself to keep Addie from touching the keyboard. "This is a ledger for Helen's Hope."

"So these are more cooked books?" Toni asked. 

"They aren't tartar," Hobson said. 

"Funny guy," Banks said. Toni still couldn't read what he thought of Hobson, but the fact he was tolerating him was a good sign. She reached over and tickled Addie under the chin; Addie giggled and stuck out her tongue.

"These here are legitimate donations--or at least they look like it, but this set of donor number I.D.s comes up over and over again." Hobson pointed at the left-hand column of the second spreadsheet. "See--there's 55824, 47964, 68165, 32410--all in the same order in four different places." He grimaced when Addie pulled the finger he'd been pointing at the screen into her mouth and bit down. "Does this charity really have over sixty thousand donors, or are these zip codes?"

Five-digit numbers could mean a lot of different things, but Toni said what Banks, at least, had to be thinking. "They could be badge numbers."

"Oh, shit," Winslow muttered.

Banks's brow furrowed deeper than it had all day. "One way to find out."

"I'm on it." Paul stepped away, dialing his cell.

"We were so busy ruling out Maurice; should've looked more closely at his wife," Banks muttered.

"We forgot what a mother would do for her kid." Toni could have kicked herself for not seeing it, especially when she'd had Rachel and Addie with her all that time.

"So crooked cops donate money to her charity, and they get some kind of reward in return?" Hobson bent over to put Addie down, sucking in a sharp breath between his teeth. She crawled to the stack of plastic food dishes under the coffee table. 

"They're not donating," Banks said ominously. 

"Porter worked in robbery," Toni said. Which meant they had access to cash, jewelry and electronics, for starters. "He could skim a bit off every cache of evidence that comes in and launder it through the charity." She felt sick saying it; she'd worked with the division, most recently on a couple cases involving Amber Lamonte, and she'd thought they were good cops. But she'd been fooled before. They all had.

"Helen takes a cut and gets CPD in her pocket in return," Winslow finished.

"It's just a theory," Toni said when she got a good look at Banks's face--and his white-knuckled fist tapping the granite countertop. 

"We have Porter and Delano in custody," Banks countered. "That's evidence, not theory."

"And those are their badge numbers," Paul said, flipping his phone shut. "The other two are Carl Delano and Rick Benning."

"That's the guy from the picture?" Hobson asked. Toni nodded. "I hate to ask this, but if some of these guys were working robbery, could they have done more than skim off the evidence?"

"You mean, could they have arranged the robberies?" she asked. "I don't know, Hobson, it's--"

"Possible," Banks finished. "There's that six-year string of takes from small antiques dealers, the one Benning wanted me to question Zeke Crumb, of all people, about. Maybe he thought we were closing in on him after Winslow got that anonymous tip yesterday." He fixed Toni with a stern look. "You wouldn't know about that, would you Detective?" She shook her head. He turned to Hobson. "What about you?"

"No sir," he said, going a little green around the gills. "The only stuff I know for sure is what happened to me, and what's on that computer."

"However this all falls out, we're in for months of..." Banks caught Toni's eye, shook his head. Paperwork, Toni thought. Bad PR and shakeups in the hierarchy. "...reckoning," he finished. He didn't say _again_ , but they were all thinking it. 

"We'll come out of it in better shape," she offered. "Even if we didn't know how bad it's been until now."

"Better, stronger, faster," Winslow chimed in. "The Bionic Police Department. Just like--shutting up, sir," he said when Banks shot him a look. He stuffed a taco in his mouth.

"So some of the money that goes through the charity, it doesn't go for cancer research," Hobson said flatly. He scrolled through more dizzying numbers. "From the looks of this, unless she has some legitimate donors with big pockets, most of it didn't. Look at this line. It's supposed to be a stock purchase, like they're setting up an endowment so they can run the charity on the interest, but that symbol belongs to a tech upstart that went bankrupt three years ago."

"What a mess." Banks snapped the laptop closed with a sigh. "We'll have a forensic accountant go over this. Unless you want the job, Hobson?" That got a nervous laugh. "I have to go take care of damage control. Brief Ora and the mayor, pull in people for questioning." He turned to Toni. "You'll take care of your witness when she gets here?" He waved a hand at Hobson and Addie. "And them?"

"Yes, sir."

"Ora will have a field day with this. Could make her career." He gave Toni's arm an awkward, almost fatherly pat. "And yours."

"This isn't what I wanted, sir." She'd wanted the bad guys caught, of course, and Addie and Rachel safe. She just hadn't wanted the bad guys to be their own people.

"But it's what it is. We'll get it cleaned up, Brigatti. Thanks to you." He looked around the room. "All of you."

When Banks and the techs left, Hobson lowered himself, tight-lipped but uncomplaining, to the floor. He started the endless game of building box towers for Addie to knock down. Paul shot Toni a thoughtful, questioning look from the second laptop, where he was going over everyone's recorded statements, but she was too tired to figure out what he meant.

Winslow was a lot more obvious. "You're pretty smart with numbers for a nanny, Hobson," he snarked. "A man of hidden talents. Next thing you know, we'll be hiring you to do all our taxes. In between babysitting gigs, of course."

He was too busy coming up with new barbs to really see the effect they had on Hobson; Toni wasn't sure if the pained look on Hobson's face was annoyance or actual pain. She stepped in front of him, blocking Winslow's view as Addie sent another stack tumbling. "Leave him alone," she said under her breath, backing him up to the island. "Eat another taco or something."

"Aw, c'mon, I'm just having some fun."

"Yeah, well, I'm not."

Winslow shook his head, mock-sorrowful and totally unfazed. "If you're serious about him, we'll never have any fun again, partner."

Luckily for Winslow--Toni didn't have a snappy comeback, but her hand had curled into a fist--the security panel beeped. Hobson tensed and picked Addie up with a grunt while Toni checked the monitor. Carla Burkhead waved at the camera. Rachel fidgeted next to her, turning Fred over and over in her hands. Toni let them in the elevator. "Mama's coming," she told Addie. 

The instant the elevator opened, Rachel was in the room, with Carla a few steps behind. Rachel's searching gaze landed on Toni. "Where is she?"

A little voice crowed, "Ma!" and Rachel whipped around to see Hobson and her daughter over by the sofa. Rachel opened her mouth--Toni assumed she meant to say Addie's name, but all that came out was a hiccupping squeak. Hobson closed the distance with a couple long strides and finally handed Addie over without a fight. Rachel pressed her curled head to Addie's and stood that way while the whole room held still and watched, until Addie broke the moment by thumping Fred against her mother's face. "Ba magago!"

Rachel's shoulders shook; Toni couldn't tell if she was laughing or crying, but the set of Hobson's jaw when he glanced over and met Toni's eyes probably meant crying. "You want to sit down?" he asked gently. "The sofa's over--"

He broke off when Rachel wrapped an arm around his torso with a muffled, "Thank you." Hobson didn't answer, probably because she'd squeezed the breath out of whatever was left of his lungs. But Addie's happy burbling took the edge off the moment. 

Toni joined Rachel on the sofa to answer her barrage of questions about the bump on Addie's head, the scratch on her arm, and what Helen Guyette and her flunkies had done--or tried to do--to her. Hobson hovered next to the coffee table looking quietly lost, as though Rachel had stolen his ability to string words together when she took Addie back. 

"I told them everything in court today, just as we planned. I was terrified I'd kill her with every word." Rachel shook her head. "But I had to do it."

"They gave you an _or_ ," Hobson said, "but you fought for an _and_."

"Something like that. I knew it was the only way to show them I'm not afraid. But I couldn't stop picturing--" She broke off and buried her face in Addie's curls again, then reached for Toni's hand. "I kept telling myself you'd find her."

"She's fine, I promise. Aren't you, kiddo?" Addie grinned at Toni around Fred's bill, which she was gnawing on.

After a few sniffles, Rachel sat back and held Addie up in front of her. Addie's feet kicked at the air. "Ruffles?" she asked Toni, who shrugged. "She looks like a different kid in this thing. I know it's only been a few days, but she's been through so much. Almost as if she's grown into a whole new person. I wasn't sure she'd forgive me for leaving her for so long."

"She doesn't have the same sense of time we do." Toni stole a look at Hobson, whose eyes had gone a little wide. "She won't even remember much about it in a few days."

"She remembers you, though," Hobson said, his voice nearly a whisper. "Those people today, she just wanted to hide from them. But look at her now, she's--" Addie twisted around and whapped at his knees with Fred. "--she's her same happy self."

"She's trusting," Rachel said. "She trusts the two of you because you never gave her a reason not to. And I won't forget." She kissed the bump on Addie's forehead, and her voice hardened like it had in the courtroom. "I want to know who hurt her."

Toni hesitated, not because she wasn't going to tell Rachel about Helen Guyette, but because she had to untangle what she'd known via Hobson's newspaper from the rest of the narrative. "It's a long story, but--" She shot Hobson a grin. "--we'll tell you what you need to know."

"Hey, Hobson, come here for a minute," Paul called from over at the island. "I had the _Sun-Times_ email me a copy of that picture you remembered from the other day. This is what set you off?"

Hobson glanced between the laptop screen and Toni a couple times, lips pressed together. "Yeah, that's it."

"What's really going on?" Rachel asked in an undertone. "Gary looks like he's in worse shape than you are. Is this because I testified? Aren't they done with us yet?"

"They're all in custody. You're both safe, I promise." Addie lunged for Hobson's cat, who slunk out from under the coffee table. She flopped onto her belly on Rachel's knees, trying to reach its thrashing tail. 

"What's with the cat? Aren't you allergic?"

"Apparently not to this one." Though Hobson stood at the island, a hand on his chin as if he were studying whatever was on Paul's screen, she could feel him listening, sneaking glances her way. "Not anymore." Still, she nudged it away with her foot. It didn't go far. "Look, Rachel, I have to tell you why they were after Addie in the first place. They weren't just trying to stop you testifying."

Rachel tensed. "'After Addie'? What do you mean?"

"You suspected Mike hadn't turned over everything he got off Dennis Guyette's computers to the prosecutors. Helen Guyette was pretty sure of the same thing." Toni outlined what had gone down between Mike and Helen. 

Rachel picked up Fred and turned it over, rubbing her thumb along Hobson's awkward repair job. "He put it in Addie's toy?" Addie pushed herself up and grabbed at Fred, but Rachel held it out of her reach. "And then he went to _them_? What was he thinking?" 

Over Addie's grunted protests, Toni said, "Remember, you found Fred when you were packing to come back to Chicago. You assumed Mike bought it for Addie. You don't know he was ever planning to give it to her."

"What else was he going to do with a stuffed animal?" Rachel let Addie have Fred and flopped back against the couch. "Mike did some stupid shit in his time, but this is the worst. He nearly got us both--all--killed, and he got the three of you hurt trying to stop those people." Addie giggled and waved Fred around like it was some kind of prize. "And he's not here to take the blame because--oh, God. She had him killed, didn't she? What the _fuck_ was he thinking?"

"Maybe he wasn't thinking." Toni had been pretty pissed at Mike Pemberton once she'd heard what Hobson had to say about his reasons for hiding the chip, but she didn't want this to destroy Rachel's memories of the guy. Of Addie's father. "Maybe he didn't know who to trust," Toni said. "And maybe he didn't intend for Addie to have Fred until the chip was in the right hands."

"Maybe he was scared," Rachel whispered. She twisted her wedding ring; Addie noticed and tried to pull Rachel's fingers into her mouth. Rachel fought back tears. "I want to be mad at him. I want him here to be mad at. Don't--ow!" she exclaimed as Addie bit down on her finger. 

"Here, I got her." Hobson came over and swooped Addie into the air while Rachel shook her finger. He put Addie, still giggling, down on the floor, and she scooted down the hall after the cat. 

"Sometimes smart people do stupid things because they're protecting--or think they're protecting--someone else." Toni was careful not to look behind her, where Hobson was no doubt paying attention to her as well as Addie. "Someone they care about."

"Why are you defending Mike? His sheer stupidity nearly killed us all."

"I'm not defending him, not exactly. I just think maybe you're jumping to conclusions when you don't have all the information you need to understand the truth. About Mike," she added hastily when Rachel caught her sidelong look at Hobson. He caught it, too, but he had to hustle down the hall to extract Addie from the bathroom.

"Sure it's about Mike." Despite her anger, Rachel's faint grin was a lot kinder, a lot more understanding, than Winslow's smirk.

When the security panel beeped again, Paul let the guy from McGinty's up on the elevator. They both walked in from the entry with their arms loaded with brown paper bags. The scent nearly knocked Toni over, reminding her how long it had been since she'd eaten.

"Hobson." Paul nodded at the kid behind him, who had saucer-round eyes and a the beginnings of an impressive afro. Toni had seen him bussing tables at McGinty's once or twice. "He says he has to see you."

"Sorry, Mr. H.," the kid said with a shrug, "but Ms. Clark said not to come back to work unless I could tell her I'd seen you. 'Alive and in one piece,' those were her exact words. The detective said I could take his word for it, and I would sir, I really would, but Ms. Clark would know I'm lying."

"Yeah, she would." Hobson hobbled over and took the bags out of his arms. "Now you can tell her the truth, Lucas."

Lucas waved a hand in the general direction of Hobson's purpling jawline. "You look kind of messed up. What happened this time?"

"It's no big deal. All you have to tell Marissa is that you saw me in one piece." Hobson winked, like somebody's genial grandfather or something. "I'll add your tip to your paycheck."

"Thanks." Lucas flashed a relieved smile, then nodded at Toni. "Good to see you, Detective."

"A propensity toward deception," Toni muttered as Lucas left, too low for Hobson to hear the words, but not low enough to avoid another of his questioning looks. "Let's eat."

Hobson went to work unloading the food and serving it on the condo's dishes. Toni was used to eating takeout while she worked, straight from the bag and sometimes with her fingers, so she was a little taken aback by the way he set up the island as if it were one of the tables in his bar. Or as if this really were a home. But it gave her a moment to pull him aside when she saw how he grabbed the edge of the countertop every few steps and winced. She shoved the packet of hydrocodone into his hand. "You're going to take these. I'm tired of watching you make faces and grunt."

"I'm not--" His jaw worked, but then he looked over at Addie, who was happily banging her spoon in her dish, sending the applesauce Marissa had sent for her flying. "Okay, maybe I am."

"She's safe, Hobson. Relax, have some dinner, and take the damn pills or I will carry you to the hospital myself."

"That's, uh--quite an image." His eyes crinkled, but she could feel Winslow's smirk hit her back, so she smacked Hobson's arm, a warning he seemed to understand. "Yeah, okay, I'll take them."

Along with the steaks, there were baked potatoes, garlic bread, bruschetta, a huge plastic bowl of salad, and a six-pack of Heineken. Everyone but Rachel drank water, though; Toni, Winslow, and Paul were still technically on duty, and she assumed Hobson didn't want to mix alcohol and drugs. They turned on the television to watch the evening news, which was big on the sensationalism surrounding the trial and the new charges, but light on the details of what had really happened.

"They didn't mention any of us, not even you, partner." Winslow looked a little dejected when the news team switched to coverage of the Taste of Chicago. "Where's the justice in that?"

"Fine by me." Hobson went to the fridge to refill his water glass.

"Believe me, you don't want publicity over this," Rachel said with a shudder. "Just the thought of those people hearing my name--however you managed to keep Addie out of it, thank you."

"That was probably Ora's doing," Toni said. Her voice came out a little sleepy, probably because she'd eaten enough food to make her nearly comatose. "She's a genius with the press."

Paul dropped his fork on his empty plate. "Wow, Hobson. I have to eat at your place more often. You want a ride home?"

"I--uh--" Glass in hand, he looked at Toni, lost, questioning. Again. Nodded at Addie, who was drooping over what was left of her dinner. "You're taking them home tonight?"

"I thought we'd stay here," Toni said. She'd worked it out with Banks; they had to make sure everything was settled and everyone who might come after Rachel was in custody. "Give us time to air out her place, make sure our friends didn't leave any party favors."

Rachel bit her lip, but then shook it off when she saw everyone watching her. "Whatever Toni thinks is best," she said. "As long as I'm with Addie, I don't care."

"We'll set a guard outside this building, just in case," Paul said. "We can do the same at McGinty's if it'll make you feel better, Hobson."

Hobson watched Toni for another few seconds, still asking whatever question it was he'd been holding back all afternoon. He must not have liked whatever answer he thought she'd given him, because his shoulders slumped as he set the glass on the counter. "Whatever Brigatti thinks is best," he said. 

Paul shot her a frown, but Winslow cracked a grin that was decidedly amused, if not downright evil. That made up her mind.

"You know what--no." She stood--not that it gave her any height advantage, but she felt more in charge with her feet planted on the floor. "It's a waste of resources to have two units on guard in the same neighborhood. Besides, I haven't had a chance to debrief him."

"We already took his statement," Winslow said.

Hobson, who couldn't keep the surprise off his face, told Winslow, "I guess she wants to make sure you got everything down accurately. No false rumors or gossip."

Winslow snorted. "That's not all she wants."

"It's my case," Toni said, forestalling any escalation between the two of them. "I'm the one who has to file the full report for the higher-ups, and you know they'll go over this one with a fine-toothed comb. I want to make sure we fill in any gaps." Winslow smirked. "In the _report_ , Ringo," she snapped, and was rewarded by the smirk dropping right off his face.

Eyebrow quirked, Paul looked from her to Winslow to Hobson and back, then shrugged. "Whatever you think is best," he said, and she knew she'd be hearing that line for the rest of her tenure at CPD. But it was _her_ tenure, Hobson was technically still her witness, and this was still, without a doubt, her case. Her team. 

"Let's go," Paul told Winslow. "I got a baby of my own and I haven't seen her in days."

Toni walked them to the elevator. "Not a word," she growled at Winslow. "Not one more."

The damn smirk crawled back onto his face. "Just trying to help you out. You know how rumors run wild around the department."

"I also know where they start. But Winslow--" She fixed him with her most polished senior partner look, and the smirk melted enough for her to see the cop behind the twelve-year-old façade. "Thanks for helping out today."

"I've got your back. You know that."

Paul nodded toward Hobson, who was helping wipe Addie's hands--or trying to. Addie seemed to think it would be fun to suck the extra rice and applesauce right off the washcloth. "You think he's okay?"

Toni sighed. "He needs--God, he needs a doctor. But he won't go to one, so I don't want him to be alone tonight. The last thing this department needs right now is a lawsuit for negligence. I'll keep an eye on him."

Winslow's smirk flashed back as the two of them walked onto the elevator. "I bet you will."

She took a moment to breathe past the urge to kick the elevator doors behind her partner, then went back to the kitchen. Addie nuzzled on Rachel's shoulder, and Rachel fixed Toni with the tired, delighted smile that only her daughter could bring out in her. "I know this sounds trite, because it's not big enough, but I don't know how to thank you. Both of you."

"It's my job," Toni said simply.

Hobson shrugged, all goofy, aw-shucks charm. Some of the tight lines on his face eased when Addie grabbed the fingers he waved at her. "You could call me. If you ever need anyone to--you know, take her to the park. Or a Cubs game."

Rachel gave a wry laugh. "Or save her life?"

"That was mostly Toni." Her name came naturally out of his mouth, familiar and warm, and she wondered if that had anything to do with his unasked question.

"She wouldn't be here if it wasn't for both of you."

"It's been an honor." Hobson grinned at Addie; her drool ran down his finger. "I think she kinda saved me, too."

Toni showed Rachel the bedroom and their stash of diapers and borrowed clothes. "I hope there's still something clean enough for her to wear."

"She'll be fine." Addie lay limp while Rachel changed her into pajamas, blinking sleepily up at Toni. "Did she have a nap at all today?"

"Yeah, but she went through a lot, too." 

"We all did."

As if to reinforce what Toni was saying, Addie let out a howl the minute Rachel tried to lay her down in the crib. Toni wondered if she was afraid to dream. She knew the feeling. Addie pulled herself up on the bars, red-faced and indignant. Rachel, who usually seemed to be okay with letting her cry herself to sleep, scooped her out immediately. Addie snuggled into her shoulder with a tired, almost smug little smile. "Maybe we'll sleep together on the bed tonight. I know I run the risk of spoiling her, but it's just one night."

Toni wasn't sure whether to tell her Addie had spent most of the last few nights sleeping on her or Hobson. "She'll adjust back to her normal routine when she's home."

That might have been the wrong thing to say; Rachel's face clouded over. "It's not like we have a 'normal' to get back to. I haven't been home since before Mike died."

"You'll figure it out. You'll have help from me, if nothing else."

"You're hardly a last resort, Toni. She really loves you--and Gary, too."

"Yeah." Toni bopped a finger on Addie's nose and got a conspiratorial grin in return. "I'd say he's smitten with her."

"Not just with her."

"Oh, come on, not you, too."

"I'm serious, Toni. He's a good guy. A _really_ good guy. And he looks at you like Mike used to look..." She trailed off, tears forming in her eyes as Addie burrowed into her shoulder. "We don't always get second chances, or enough time with our first chances. A guy who looks at you like that--you should at least think about looking back."

"I've definitely thought about it." It was what came after looking that had always been her stumbling block. 

"Good."

It was only when Toni closed the bedroom door behind her, leaving Rachel curled up on the bed with Addie, that she realized she wasn't sure where she was going to sleep. Or Hobson. One of them could take the couch, but there weren't any other options. No wonder Winslow had smirked.

Well, that, and the fact that whatever existed between them seemed to be apparent to everyone who came within a few feet of them. What was she supposed to do about it?

Hobson wasn't in the living room, but his cat was, pacing in front of the windowed wall. The door out to the balcony was open a few inches, and she could see Hobson leaning awkwardly on the railing, all his weight on one leg. There was a backlog of words, of questions, of explanations built up between them, which was weird when they'd spent so much time together, but honestly, she had no idea where to start. She went to work clearing the dishes from the island, rinsing and slotting them into the dishwasher, while she tried to decide what to say to him. 

She could do what she'd been doing for well over a year: make sure they parted on good terms, leaving all possibilities open, and hope the next time one of them tried to set up a date the other one would make it. They could keep dancing around each other and all these possibilities without ever grabbing hold of one, ensuring the possibilities were always there, always tantalizing and never able to truly hurt either one of them if they didn't work out. But that wasn't what she wanted. Not now. Hobson's prophetic newspaper complicated at least as much as it explained, but she was beginning to believe that wasn't such a bad thing. Complications were part of life, after all. 

She turned back to grab more plates and came face to face with the cat, who perched on top of the island. "I'm not feeding you. There aren't any leftovers anyway, unless you like cold tacos." She swatted at it, and it swatted back with a happy purr. She drew in a breath, and nothing itched. Not her nose, not her throat, not her eyes. "You are one weird cat."

As if to prove the point, it swiped a paw at Hobson's plate. It skidded toward the edge of the island; Toni grabbed it and pulled it away, revealing the unopened packet of hydrocodone. Speaking of weird. Not to mention stupid. She snagged his glass of water and the pills and headed for the balcony. Hobson turned when she slid the door open, flinched when he saw the stuff in her hands. In his own, he held a rolled-up copy of the _Sun-Times_. 

"What the hell are you trying to prove?" Toni demanded.

"Nothing. I mean, I'm not--" He turned the newspaper over a couple times, as if the right words would sort themselves out of the thousands printed there and drop into his hands. "They'll put me to sleep."

"So will that." She pointed at the bottle of beer on the table; it was covered in condensation, which meant he hadn't had much of it yet. "Not that you couldn't use a little shut-eye. I can see the circles under your eyes from here." That wasn't quite true; the sun had sunk behind the building, sending shadows over the balcony and out to the lake. 

"Where am I supposed to sleep, the bathtub?" His shit-eating grin made a wan, slightly fuzzy appearance, as though his heart wasn't quite in it. "Or do you have a spare footstool tucked away in there?" 

She shrugged, stepped all the way out to the railing, where a faint breeze teased the heat away. "You can take the couch. I'll figure something out." Nodding at the newspaper, she added, "Unless there's something in there you have to run off and take care of."

"Nothing new, no." Hobson unrolled the paper to show her a story about the arrests, the new charges, the corruption in CPD. What they'd set in motion by uncovering Helen Guyette's involvement in the mob was all over the front page. "It's not really finished, is it? There'll be another trial."

Was that what he'd been trying to ask all this time? Surely he'd already known the answer. "Or three. And depositions and--yeah. Sorry." She remembered how uncomfortable he'd been at Corbel's trial, and Savalas's. Now she understood why. He might have a propensity toward deception, but he'd never been comfortable with it. "It's the price you pay for being a hero."

He winced and turned away, resting his elbows on the railing. "More like the price I pay for being an idiot."

"You think you deserve this?" She didn't only mean the trials. "You don't deserve to be inconvenienced, let alone hurt. For what you did--what you seem to do a lot--you deserve--God, I don't know. A medal and a few years of therapy. So would you take the damn pills already? I don't need your aches and pains on my conscience tonight."

He stared out over the city for a minute, then at her. Finally, he took the packet, shook out the pills, popped them in his mouth, and swallowed down the water. Each motion was deliberate and sharp, no doubt for her benefit. He put the empty packet in the glass, and the glass on the table behind him, then turned, hands out. "What is it you _do_ need, Detective Brigatti?"

That was not the question he'd been storing up all day, not by a long shot. He was giving her an out. She could back down. She could mutter something noncommittal and stalk off, go lie down on the bed with Rachel and Addie and stare at the ceiling all night, leaving him moping out here and wondering...whatever it was he was wondering. Between Addie and Rachel and the new edition of his newspaper, there wouldn't be time to have this conversation tomorrow, and they could pretend everything was the same as always.

Trouble was, that wasn't what she needed. It was most certainly not what she wanted. "How about a little honesty, for starters?"

"I told you about the paper. I told you everything."

She pulled the paper out of his hand and dropped it on the table. "Everything but the real reason you went down to the station today." She knew what it was, and she wanted--no, needed--to hear him say it. To know he was ready for the next step.

"I told you, I saw you in the paper, and I couldn't risk--I didn't know how else to protect Addie if anything happened to you."

"But that's not really it, is it?"

"Of course it is, it's--"

"Gary." She stepped closer, so she had to look up to meet his eyes. Slid her hand along the railing until it was almost touching his. "I _get_ it. You were in that paper, too."

"Yeah, I know." He stared down at their hands. "I told you, I saw the story." 

"That's not what I'm talking about." She brushed his hand with her fingertips, then rested them on his arm, felt the blood pulsing under his skin. They were both supposed to be in the morgue tonight, cold, neither of them knowing how badly they'd failed Addie and each other. But they were here, sweating and hurting and breathing, and it was about damned time they both admitted why: they'd chosen to fight for each other, chosen that _and_ he kept talking about. "I saw the story about you, and I _felt_ it. Whatever it was you've felt the times you've seen me in your paper--I know it now. It changes everything."

"It does?" he asked, like a complete, idiotic dope.

"Well, that and the fact you've kissed me once or twice in all this."

"I've kissed you before."

"Not like that." And even those kisses had been in the heat of battle, where Gary Hobson was, without a doubt, brave. But here and now...she grinned.

"What's so funny?" He looked so utterly confused she couldn't help but chuckle. "No, seriously, what is it?"

"You're supposed to be some kind of hero." She reached up to touch his face, brushing her fingers over the bruised spot on his jaw. "But you've never had the guts to kiss me like this. Never after it's all over, when we aren't faking it or a minute or two away from nearly getting killed." She slipped her hand to the back of his neck and pulled him down until their lips met. It was all she could do to hold back, to keep the kiss light and sweet until she was sure it was what they both wanted. 

"What are you doing?" he whispered onto her lips.

"Answering the question you've been dying to ask all day, for starters." And for seconds, she did it again. After a startled hesitation, his hands came up to her shoulders, pulling her in while she deepened the kiss. She turned her head to fit her open mouth more tightly to his, slipped her tongue between his teeth. 

There were a few moments, or maybe a few years, with no light, no sound, just the sweet intensity of touch and taste. They broke away for a breath, and Toni opened her eyes, thinking there should have been fireworks, what with all the energy flowing between them, but the Fourth of July was a week gone--and then the lights coming on all over River North jumped and streaked. "Hobson--what--"

He spun her away from the railing as if they were dancing, until her back was against the smooth glass of the condo's windows. One hand came up to cup the back of her head as he trailed kisses from just behind her ear, along her jawline, to the hollow of her throat, sending electric ripples out to her limbs. "Too dangerous," he murmured between kisses. "Can't--let--you fall."

"Not going to fall." She ran a hand through his hair--it wasn't even fair how thick and soft it was--and turned his head to bring his lips back to hers, where she wanted them. "I'm not going anywhere."

This wasn't him kissing her in desperation, or her kissing him to answer a question. It was both of them, together, kissing each other, and they settled into it, steady and slow, like coming home. He wrapped one arm around her waist; the other was still between the back of her head and the glass as he pressed closer, but not nearly close enough.

She slid her hands under his shirt; even though his skin was warm, she raised goosebumps under her fingers as she skimmed them up from his waist--until she grazed the edge of a compression bandage and felt him hitch away from her touch. She froze, then finished off the kiss. Laced her fingers behind his back and rested her head on his chest, letting the broken, rattling rhythm of his breathing convince her that, much as she didn't want to, she had to put an end to this.

For now.

"Toni." Her name came out in a hoarse moan, and he slumped into her, pushing the small of her back into his arm, into the window. "Why'd you stop?" he mumbled into her hair, so aching, so desperate she could have sworn she felt it catch the edge of her heart.

She opened her eyes. Beyond the curve of his arm, the lights of the buildings around them floated in the semidark. "I don't want to hurt you."

"I don't care if it hurts. I took the pills, yanno." His words slurred together, and his cheek against the top of her head was heavy. 

"I _do_ care, Gary, God..." She grasped his arms and pushed him back to get a good look at his face. He slumped into her hold. "You can't even keep yourself upright." 

"Can so." He made a valiant effort, blinking fiercely, but he swayed and had to catch himself with his palms flat against the window to keep from falling onto her. "I swear, I don't feel a thing."

"I'm sure you don't. Come on, let's get you inside before I really do have to carry you." She squared her shoulders under his arm and made him lean against her, even though he tried to pull himself away with every step, still trying to prove whatever it was he thought he had to prove. He sank down on the sofa with a dopey grin and put his feet up on the coffee table, patting the space next to him. 

She crossed her arms and looked down at him, trying to settle a raging internal debate. Knowing what to do with Hobson after a case had always been tough, but whatever the hell had happened out there had made this one even tougher. She absolutely did not want to hurt him, but she didn't trust herself to sit next to him and not start it up all over again. Not just yet.

"C'mon, Toni. You told me to relax, and I relaxed. Now you gotta do the same," he finished over her snort. 

"You need to sleep."

"Nope." He pushed himself up, then slid right back down. "I feel great. Don't want to go to sleep when I feel better than I have all day. And I want to ask you something."

Sure she'd regret it, she maneuvered around the coffee table and perched on the edge of the sofa next to him. "Okay, what is it?"

His eyebrows drew together; his feet slid off the coffee table and he sat forward, knocking his knees into hers. As if all this casual contact between them was normal now. "What I want to know is--no, what I _need_ to know is--" He tried to fix her with a serious gaze, but the hydrocodone had left him a little too loopy for that. His head bobbed as if they were on a boat, and he put a hand on her knee, presumably to steady himself. "--what comes next?"

Funny, she was wondering the same thing. "You're the one who knows the future. You tell me."

"This future isn't in the paper. It never is." He leaned close, put his palms on the sides of her face, like he was trying to hold her still. "You know, I've never chased after you because I wasn't sure if you wanted to be caught."

" _Caught_? What am I, a fish?"

"No, I mean, caught up with. You're always a few steps ahead of me, and I can never quite figure out what you'll do next. Why we never seem to make it work. And I wasn't sure you wanted me to be the one to do the chasing or the catching. Up. The catching up."

Even though his touch was doing ridiculous things to her insides, to her ability to think, she couldn't help but laugh. "I'm the one who can't guess what you'll do next. But everything's different now, Gary." His name still felt a little strange coming out of her mouth, but it was strange in a good way. Like the man himself. "Your secret's out. Besides, we don't _not_ work."

"But how do we make this not-not-working thing work long term?" His frown deepened, as if he didn't quite know where that string of words had come from. "I mean, I keep thinking there's a reason we've never even managed two dates in a row."

"Maybe it wasn't right until now." She brought her hand up to cover one of his. Smiled until the corners of her mouth brushed against his palms. "Whatever the reason, it's bullshit. Why can't we have what we want?"

"What--what _we_ want?" His voice was a little slurry, his smile a whole lot dopey. She answered him with a kiss that pushed him against the sofa back. "You're right," he said, keeping his lips against hers. "It is bullshit."

"I'm always right. You'll figure that out eventually." She kissed him once more, for luck and promises, and settled in next to him. 

His head drooped against her shoulder. "Got a lot to figure out."

"Yeah? Like what?" She slid back into the warmth of his arm, and he trailed fingertip circles under the hem of her t-shirt sleeve.

"I dunno, I--I'm just a little tired tonight is all." He sighed a couple of times, long, slow breaths that calmed her as if he was breathing for both of them. Reached down and laced his fingers through hers. "Don't get too far ahead of me."

"Not this time." The whole world had slowed to the rise and fall of his chest. She closed her eyes and promised, "This time we'll figure it out together."

~*~*~*~

**Author's Note:**

> So, this sucker took over three and a half years to write, but it was longer than that in the actual making. Long story short: once upon a season four, someone who worked on the show leaked to an EE list (yes, my dears, this was back in the day of email lists) that a script featuring Gary and Brigatti being forced to take care of an abandoned baby together had been written, but was never filmed because Constance Marie had scheduling conflicts. The sheer tragedy of this ate at me for years, until very early one morning in July, 2010, inspired by Jayne L.'s [Early Edition: New World Order vid](http://serrico.livejournal.com/649346.html), I mapped out the first few scenes. The story grew and grew (and was set aside for months at a time so I could deal with other commitments) and GREW to...well, this. I JUST HAVE A LOT OF FEELINGS ABOUT THIS PAIR OF IDIOTS.
> 
> To anyone who's read this far: thank you. And can we be friends and talk about all our EE feels? Because I still miss this show and these characters and their stupid, ridiculous faces.


End file.
